Monday, April 11, 2011

Fascinating!

I just had a brief conversation with my company's CMO (Chief Medical Officer). He saw me signing a purchase order and remarked on the fact that I'm left-handed. He asked if I do anything righty, to which I replied that I do almost everything else righty, from cutting with scissors, swinging a racket, using a paint-roller. Generally I do some fine-motor skill things with my left hand, but most things are right-handed things. He wondered aloud if I was right brained or left brained, and I said:

"There's probably a test for that."

He said that there is a test but I probably wouldn't want to take it*. What they do is they inject sodium pentathol into your carotid artery on either side of your neck to put that side of your brain to sleep. Then they see if you can still talk - if you can, that's the dominant side of your brain.
I find this amazing because I had always assumed that your brain-sidedness was only for what I would call secondary brain functions, like affinity for math or art, spacial acuity, that sort of thing. I had no idea that the things everyone (or almost everyone) can do, like talking, were controlled by different sides of the brain. Crazy!

Also, the CMO said that most right-handed people are left brained, and most left-handed people are left brained. Very few people are actually truly right brained.

Dude, SCIENCE!!

*Is it totally fucked up that now I kind of do want to take that test? Less for the neck injection part and more for the finding out my dominant side part...

7 comments:

The Perfect Space said...

http://www.suite101.com/content/right-brain-characteristics-a2607

Leslie said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Leslie said...

I meant to post:
Cool, but not as scientific as a needle to your carotid, I'm afraid...

Anonymous said...

Huh. And here I thought that speech was left-side lateralized for everyone. But google tells me that no, apparently it's more like 95% of the population.

I guess I know it's left-side lateralized for me, since I had both aphasia and right-side hemiplegia after my stroke.

feather nester said...

OMG, I just typed you out the LONGEST response to this and it didn't go through. FML.

Sarah Berry said...

Isn't that the truth drug??!!

die Frau said...

That's all pretty cool. You lefties are a crazy bunch.