title: Split brains and psychoanalysis.
abstract: Modern neuro- and psychophysiological findings on commissurotomized ("split-brain") patients seem to confirm psychoanalytic theories. Twelve commissurotomized patients and one patient who had a right hemispherectomy showed an impoverishment of dreams, fantasies and symbolization. This might have been due to an interruption of the preconscious stream between the two hemispheres, which causes a separation of word-presentations from thing-presentations, as well as to a predominance of a feedback-free primary process in the right hemisphere. The similarity in operational thinking of psychosomatic and split-brain patients leads the author to hypothesize a "functional commissurotomy" in cases of severe psychosomatic disturbances.
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000339:Affect; D003337:Corpus Callosum / Q000502:physiology* / Q000503:physiopathology; D003674:Defense Mechanisms; D004292:Dominance, Cerebral; D004325:Dreams / Q000502:physiology; D005201:Fantasy; D005260:Female; D006624:Hippocampus / Q000502:physiology* / Q000503:physiopathology; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011572:Psychoanalysis; D011574:Psychoanalytic Theory; D011602:Psychophysiologic Disorders / Q000503:physiopathology