Michael Gazzaniga
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Michael S. Gazzaniga (born December 12, 1939) is an American cognitive neuroscientist who is an emeritus professor of psychology at the
University of California, Santa Barbara The University of California, Santa Barbara (UC Santa Barbara or UCSB) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Santa Barbara County, California, United States. Tracing its roots back to 1891 as an ...
. He is the founder and retired director of the SAGE Center for the Study of the Mind at UCSB (2006–2023).


Biography

In 1961, Gazzaniga graduated from
Dartmouth College Dartmouth College ( ) is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Hanover, New Hampshire, United States. Established in 1769 by Eleazar Wheelock, Dartmouth is one of the nine colonial colleges chartered before the America ...
with a B.A in Zoology. In 1964, he received a Ph.D. in psychobiology from the
California Institute of Technology The California Institute of Technology (branded as Caltech) is a private research university in Pasadena, California, United States. The university is responsible for many modern scientific advancements and is among a small group of institutes ...
, where he carried out research on human
split-brain Split-brain or callosal syndrome is a type of disconnection syndrome when the corpus callosum connecting the two hemispheres of the brain is severed to some degree. It is an association of symptoms produced by disruption of, or interference w ...
patients for his doctoral thesis under Roger Sperry. In his subsequent work he has made important advances in our understanding of which functions are lateralized in the brain and how the left and right
cerebral hemisphere The vertebrate cerebrum (brain) is formed by two cerebral hemispheres that are separated by a groove, the longitudinal fissure. The brain can thus be described as being divided into left and right cerebral hemispheres. Each of these hemispheres ...
s communicate with one another.


Career

He has had a distinguished career in the field of cognitive neuroscience. Gazzaniga's academic career began as an assistant professor of psychology at
UCSB The University of California, Santa Barbara (UC Santa Barbara or UCSB) is a public land-grant research university in Santa Barbara County, California, United States. Tracing its roots back to 1891 as an independent teachers college, UCSB joine ...
in 1967. In 1969 he moved to
New York University New York University (NYU) is a private university, private research university in New York City, New York, United States. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded in 1832 by Albert Gallatin as a Nondenominational ...
graduate school as an assistant professor, and in 1972 became a full professor. In 1973 he took a position as professor of psychology at the
State University of New York The State University of New York (SUNY ) is a system of Public education, public colleges and universities in the New York (state), State of New York. It is one of the List of largest universities and university networks by enrollment, larges ...
at Stony Brook and later became a professor of social sciences in Medicine.http://mitp-content-server.mit.edu:18180/books/content/sectbyfn?collid=books_pres_0&fn=9780262014014_pre_0001.pdf&id=8564 A Tribute to Michael S. Gazzaniga This led to Cornell University Medical College, where he was appointed Director of the Division of Cognitive Neuroscience and a Professor of Neurology and Psychology from 1977 to 1988. During this period, he co-founded, with George A. Miller, the term ''
Cognitive Neuroscience Cognitive neuroscience is the scientific field that is concerned with the study of the Biology, biological processes and aspects that underlie cognition, with a specific focus on the neural connections in the brain which are involved in mental ...
'' in 1978, helping establish the framework for the scientific study of how the brain creates the mind. From the 1970s through the 1990s, Gazzaniga helped establish the field of
cognitive neuroscience Cognitive neuroscience is the scientific field that is concerned with the study of the Biology, biological processes and aspects that underlie cognition, with a specific focus on the neural connections in the brain which are involved in mental ...
, which integrates the study of the brain with
psychology Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Its subject matter includes the behavior of humans and nonhumans, both consciousness, conscious and Unconscious mind, unconscious phenomena, and mental processes such as thoughts, feel ...
and
cognitive science Cognitive science is the interdisciplinary, scientific study of the mind and its processes. It examines the nature, the tasks, and the functions of cognition (in a broad sense). Mental faculties of concern to cognitive scientists include percep ...
to understand how mental processes emerge from neural activity. His work has contributed to the development of experimental methods to study hemispheric specialization and the brain’s role in cognitive functions such as
language Language is a structured system of communication that consists of grammar and vocabulary. It is the primary means by which humans convey meaning, both in spoken and signed language, signed forms, and may also be conveyed through writing syste ...
,
reasoning Reason is the capacity of consciously applying logic by drawing valid conclusions from new or existing information, with the aim of seeking the truth. It is associated with such characteristically human activities as philosophy, religion, scien ...
, and facial recognition. Gazzaniga also played a key role in organizing the scientific community of cognitive neuroscience, including the establishment of academic societies and the publication of journals in the field. From 1988 to 1992, he was the Andrew W. Thomson Jr. Professor of Psychiatry and the director of the Cognitive Neuroscience Program at Dartmouth Medical School. It was at Dartmouth Medical School that Gazzaniga founded the first cognitive neuroscience degree-granting program in the United States, establishing a educational initiative that linked the fields of
psychology Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Its subject matter includes the behavior of humans and nonhumans, both consciousness, conscious and Unconscious mind, unconscious phenomena, and mental processes such as thoughts, feel ...
,
neuroscience Neuroscience is the scientific study of the nervous system (the brain, spinal cord, and peripheral nervous system), its functions, and its disorders. It is a multidisciplinary science that combines physiology, anatomy, molecular biology, ...
, and
cognitive science Cognitive science is the interdisciplinary, scientific study of the mind and its processes. It examines the nature, the tasks, and the functions of cognition (in a broad sense). Mental faculties of concern to cognitive scientists include percep ...
. After his time at Dartmouth Medical School, Gazzaniga moved to University of California Davis in 1992. At UC Davis, he launched and served as the Director of the Center for Neuroscience, where he continued to expand his pioneering research on brain function and cognitive processes. In 1993, he founded the Cognitive Neuroscience Society, a professional organization dedicated to advancing the field. From 1988 to 2003, he served as the founding editor and editor-in-chief of the ''
Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience The ''Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience'' is a monthly peer-reviewed academic journal covering cognitive neuroscience. It aims for a cross-discipline approach, covering research in neuroscience, neuropsychology, cognitive psychology, neurobiology, ...
.'' In 1996'', he returned to Dartmouth as the'' David T. McLaughlin Distinguished Professor of Psychological and Brain Sciences ''and director of the'' Center for Cognitive Neuroscience. Gazzaniga served as the Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Dartmouth College from 2002 to 2004. During his tenure, he also played a crucial role in shaping the academic landscape at the institution. In 2006, Gazzaniga became the founding Director of the Sage Center for the Study of the Mind at
UC Santa Barbara The University of California, Santa Barbara (UC Santa Barbara or UCSB) is a public land-grant research university in Santa Barbara County, California, United States. Tracing its roots back to 1891 as an independent teachers college, UCSB joined ...
, a role he took on after his time at Dartmouth. At
UCSB The University of California, Santa Barbara (UC Santa Barbara or UCSB) is a public land-grant research university in Santa Barbara County, California, United States. Tracing its roots back to 1891 as an independent teachers college, UCSB joine ...
, he continued to lead research into
cognitive neuroscience Cognitive neuroscience is the scientific field that is concerned with the study of the Biology, biological processes and aspects that underlie cognition, with a specific focus on the neural connections in the brain which are involved in mental ...
, while fostering the study of the mind's complex relationship with the
brain The brain is an organ (biology), organ that serves as the center of the nervous system in all vertebrate and most invertebrate animals. It consists of nervous tissue and is typically located in the head (cephalization), usually near organs for ...
. In 2009, he delivered the Gifford Lectures on ''Mental Life'' at the
University of Edinburgh The University of Edinburgh (, ; abbreviated as ''Edin.'' in Post-nominal letters, post-nominals) is a Public university, public research university based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Founded by the City of Edinburgh Council, town council under th ...
. In 2019,
Trinity College Dublin Trinity College Dublin (), officially titled The College of the Holy and Undivided Trinity of Queen Elizabeth near Dublin, and legally incorporated as Trinity College, the University of Dublin (TCD), is the sole constituent college of the Unive ...
awarded him with an honorary doctorate. Gazzaniga's publication career includes books for a general audience such as ''The Social Brain'', ''Mind Matters'', ''Nature's Mind'', ''The Ethical Brain'' and ''Who's in Charge?'', which is based on the Gifford lectures he presented at the
University of Edinburgh The University of Edinburgh (, ; abbreviated as ''Edin.'' in Post-nominal letters, post-nominals) is a Public university, public research university based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Founded by the City of Edinburgh Council, town council under th ...
in 2009. He is also the
editor Editing is the process of selecting and preparing written, visual, audible, or cinematic material used by a person or an entity to convey a message or information. The editing process can involve correction, condensation, organization, a ...
of ''The Cognitive Neurosciences'' book series published by the
MIT Press The MIT Press is the university press of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), a private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The MIT Press publishes a number of academic journals and has been a pioneer in the Open Ac ...
, which features the work of nearly 200 scientists and is a sourcebook for the field. His latest
book A book is a structured presentation of recorded information, primarily verbal and graphical, through a medium. Originally physical, electronic books and audiobooks are now existent. Physical books are objects that contain printed material, ...
is entitled ''The Consciousness Instinct: Unraveling the Mystery of How the Brain Makes Mind'', published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux in 2018.


Research


Early research

Gazzaniga is known for his pioneering work in the field of
cognitive neuroscience Cognitive neuroscience is the scientific field that is concerned with the study of the Biology, biological processes and aspects that underlie cognition, with a specific focus on the neural connections in the brain which are involved in mental ...
. His research with split-brain patients has been instrumental in understanding the distinct roles of the left and right hemispheres of the brain. In split-brain patients the
corpus callosum The corpus callosum (Latin for "tough body"), also callosal commissure, is a wide, thick nerve tract, consisting of a flat bundle of commissural fibers, beneath the cerebral cortex in the brain. The corpus callosum is only found in placental ...
, the giant nerve bundle which connects the right and left hemispheres, had been severed to limit the transmission of nerve impulses across the brain in the hopes of decreasing previously intractable seizures. The original series of split-brain patients, whose callosotomies had been done in the 1930s in Rochester, New York had been previously tested, and no evidence was found that there was any disruption of the interhemispheric transfer of information after callosotomy. Later, however, Sperry and his graduate student Ron Myers found that severing the corpus callosum in monkeys did block the transfer of information. As a first-year graduate student at Caltech, Gazzaniga, convinced by the monkey research that transfer of information would be interrupted, began to test the first California split-brain patient with a testing procedure that had not been done on the previous series of split-brain patients. He designed an apparatus that flashed a letter, number or symbol onto a screen to either the right or left visual field while the patient focused on a central point.


Patient W.J.

Patient W.J. was a World War II paratrooper, the first of a series of patients that underwent a callosotomy on the West Coast.Wolman, David (14 March 2012), “The Split Brain: A Tale of Two Halves”, ''Nature'' 483: 260–263(2011), "Interview with Michael Gazzaniga", ''Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences'' 1224: 1–8 He had developed grand mal seizures after a German soldier knocked him out with a rifle butt after a parachute jump behind enemy lines. Before surgery, Gazzaniga tested W.J.’s brain functions. This included presenting stimuli to the left and right visual fields and identifying objects placed in his hands that were out of view. After he had the surgery, the test results were different. When a picture of an object was flashed to his right visual field, he was asked if he saw anything: He quickly named the object. When a picture was flashed to his left visual field, he denied seeing anything. Then a circle was flashed on the screen and he was asked to point to whatever he had seen with whichever hand he wished. When the circle was flashed to the right
visual field The visual field is "that portion of space in which objects are visible at the same moment during steady fixation of the gaze in one direction"; in ophthalmology and neurology the emphasis is mostly on the structure inside the visual field and it i ...
, he pointed to where it had been with his left hand. When it was flashed to his left visual field, he pointed to where it had been with his right hand, even though he denied seeing anything. This seemingly simple test showed that each hemisphere saw a circle when it was shown in the opposite visual field, and each
hemisphere Hemisphere may refer to: In geometry * Hemisphere (geometry), a half of a sphere As half of Earth or any spherical astronomical object * A hemisphere of Earth ** Northern Hemisphere ** Southern Hemisphere ** Eastern Hemisphere ** Western Hemi ...
, separate from the other, could guide the
contralateral Standard anatomical terms of location are used to describe unambiguously the anatomy of humans and other animals. The terms, typically derived from Latin or Greek roots, describe something in its standard anatomical position. This position prov ...
hand, which it controls, to point to the circle it had seen, but only the left hemisphere could talk about it. Neither hemisphere knew what the other had seen. This experiment opened the door to years of research by Gazzaniga and colleagues that has revealed that severing the callosum prevents the transfer of perceptual, sensory, motor, gnostic and other types of information between the left and right cerebral hemispheres. Extensive research has shown that many of the brains processes are lateralized, such as speech and language to the left hemisphere, along with analytical thinking and the capacity to interpret behavior and unconsciously driven emotional states, while visuospatial processing, facial recognition, attentional monitoring, and the ascribing of beliefs to others are right hemisphere processes.


Patient P.S.

Patient P.S. was a teenage boy, the first split-brain patient studied from the east coast series who had a full callosotomy. He was also the first split-brain patient in that series who demonstrated extensive language comprehension in the right hemisphere. His right hemisphere was able to label pictures of objects by spelling out the appropriate word with Scrabble tiles. Even though he was right-handed, he could roughly write words with his left hand, even though he could not speak them. All these findings led Gazzaniga and his graduate student Joe LeDoux to wonder if the right hemisphere would be able to answer subjective and personal questions, did it have its own identity? For example, they started out by saying, “Who” and then flashed the word ‘are you’ to his left visual field and thus his right hemisphere. He spelled out PAUL with his left hand using the tiles.


Selected publications

* * * * * * * * * * * * *


Awards

*Elected fellow of
American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (The Academy) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and other ...
in 1997. *Elected
National Academy of Medicine The National Academy of Medicine (NAM), known as the Institute of Medicine (IoM) until 2015, is an American nonprofit, non-governmental organization. The National Academy of Medicine is a part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineerin ...
(formerly called Institute of Medicine) in 2005. *The Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award from the
American Psychological Association The American Psychological Association (APA) is the main professional organization of psychologists in the United States, and the largest psychological association in the world. It has over 170,000 members, including scientists, educators, clin ...
in 2008. *
Dartmouth College Dartmouth College ( ) is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Hanover, New Hampshire, United States. Established in 1769 by Eleazar Wheelock, Dartmouth is one of the nine colonial colleges chartered before the America ...
Honorary Doctorate in 2011. *
University of Aberdeen The University of Aberdeen (abbreviated ''Aberd.'' in List of post-nominal letters (United Kingdom), post-nominals; ) is a public university, public research university in Aberdeen, Scotland. It was founded in 1495 when William Elphinstone, Bis ...
Honorary Doctorate in 2011. *The William James Fellow of the
Association for Psychological Science The Association for Psychological Science (APS), previously the American Psychological Society, is an international non-profit organization whose mission is to promote, protect, and advance the interests of scientifically oriented psychology in r ...
in 2015.


See also

* Attentional shift *
Split-brain Split-brain or callosal syndrome is a type of disconnection syndrome when the corpus callosum connecting the two hemispheres of the brain is severed to some degree. It is an association of symptoms produced by disruption of, or interference w ...
* Left-brain interpreter *
Lateralization of brain function The lateralization of brain function (or hemispheric dominance/ lateralization) is the tendency for some neural functions or cognitive processes to be specialized to one side of the brain or the other. The median longitudinal fissure separates ...
* Brain asymmetry *
Laterality The term laterality refers to the preference most humans show for one side of their Human body, body over the other. Examples include Handedness, left-handedness/right-handedness and left/right-footedness; it may also refer to the primary use of ...
*
Bicameral mentality Bicameral mentality is a hypothesis introduced by Julian Jaynes who argued human ancestors as late as the ancient Greeks did not consider emotions and desires as stemming from their own minds but as the consequences of actions of gods external t ...
* Society of Mind *
Dual consciousness Dual consciousness (also known as dual mind or divided consciousness) is a hypothesis in neuroscience. It is proposed that it is possible that a person may develop two separate consciousness, conscious entities within their one brain after und ...
* Divided consciousness * Alien hand syndrome


References


External links


University of California Santa Barbara faculty web page



The Law and Neuroscience Project

Sage Center for the Study of the Mind


— an exchange between Gazzaniga and the conservative commentator William F. Buckley, Jr.
Video of Gazzaniga demonstrating the effects of split brain surgery

Video (and audio) of interview/discussion with Gazzaniga
by Carl Zimmer on Bloggingheads.tv * {{DEFAULTSORT:Gazzaniga, Michael S. 1939 births Living people California Institute of Technology alumni American cognitive neuroscientists American people of Italian descent Dartmouth College alumni University of California, Santa Barbara faculty Dartmouth College faculty Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Fellows of the Society of Experimental Psychologists University of California, Davis faculty Members of the National Academy of Medicine Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences APA Distinguished Scientific Award for an Early Career Contribution to Psychology recipients