There is indeed a left and right brain. They say the left brain is in charge of more logical, mathematical thinking and language whereas the right brain is in charge of more creative aspects, and people-oriented ones. They are connected by the corpus callosum which allows information to travel from one hemisphere to the other. I just watched the BBC documentary "Brain Story" where they talked to a man who had this structure severed, so his right and left brain were completely separate from each other. It was interesting because he could draw different shapes with different hands simultaneously, and he would have difficulty naming things he saw that appeared on the left (because this info went to his right brain, which isn't in charge of language).They also considered the idea of consciousness and whether or not it is specialized in one hemisphere of the brain, but since this man and others seemed to have the same sense of themselves that they had before their brains were split, it seems to be something that requires aspects of the whole brain. The whole documentary was very fascinating; I highly recommend it.The brain is such an interesting organ...it is hard to imagine that this lump of tissue is responsible for who we are and for our entire lives!
