Is There Life After Death by Anthony Peake

Author:Anthony Peake [Peake, Anthony]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781848379664
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

So when anatomists talk about the hippocampus or the hypothalamus they are, more correctly, discussing two organs, one found in each hemisphere. This peculiarity had been noted by even Greek and Roman physicians and because of this the pineal gland, the only organ in the brain of which there is only one, has long been believed to be the location of the soul.

Linking these two hemispheres are two nerve masses, the corpus callosum and the anterior commissure. The latter connects the unconscious limbic structures and carries emotions and basic instincts across the hemispheres. The former is of crucial importance; this mass of about 200 million nerve fibres acts as a bridge linking the two hemispheres. Its name comes from the Latin for ‘thick-skinned body’ and in many ways that is how it looks. Its location led to the supposition that it was crucial to the totality of the brain, but neurologists could not test this by the ideal method: cutting through the corpus callosum. This does not mean that they did not experiment with animals – far from it; many cats and monkeys were experimented on but for the neurologists continuing disappointment was encountered. With the exception of a slight change in conscious responses there were no lapses in voluntary coordination. The results of these operations led the psychologist Karl Lashley to suggest that the role of the corpus callosum was simply to hold the two hemispheres together. Another neurologist, Warren McCulloch, made an interesting link when he proposed that the corpus callosum’s only function was to spread epilepsy across the brain. It seems that this link had become more of a Bridge of Sighs than a Golden Gate.

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