Are we really Right Brained or Left Brained?

Are we really Right Brained or Left Brained?

A time-old way of categorizing someone’s personality is to determine whether that individual is “right-brained” or left-brained” — right-brained people are thought to be more spontaneous, creative, and artistic, while left-brainers are associated with being more logical, detail-oriented, analytical. Too bad it's not true.

So where did this whole left brain vs. right brain idea start? It was born back in the 60s when a Nobel Prize-winning neuro-psychologist named Roger Sperry cut the hemisphere-connecting brain fibers in a number of epilepsy patients to reduce their seizures. Then he decided to run an experiment to compare how the right and left hemispheres processed information differently, and his study marked the beginning of the right-brain left-brain myth that would persist through the years.

Trouble is, science never really supported this notion after that. More recently, brain scan technology has revealed that the hemispheres' roles are not quite as cut-and-dried as once thought. The two hemispheres are in fact highly complementary. For example, language processing, once believed to be left- hemisphere-only, is now understood to take place in both hemispheres: the left side processes grammar and pronunciation while the right processes intonation.

"I'm disappointed with some aspects of civilization," Neil deGrasse Tyson explained in a video interview with Fast Company. "One is our unending urge to bypass subtlety of character, thought, and expression and just categorize people.” He says to refrain from labeling him as “right-brained” or “left-brained” — Tyson is just “brained” like all of us.

What remains true is that the right side of the brain controls the left side of the body and vice versa. What this means is that an injury to the left side of the brain (such as a left-hemisphere stroke) can cause damage to the other side of the body (such as right-leg paralysis).

Debunked!