Why Our Brains Are Split Into Right And Left

(Credit: Champ-Ritthikrai/Shutterstock) Your right brain is creative and your left brain is logical. This widely accepted dichotomy cleaves the brain neatly in two, but research has shown the actual division of labor in the brain is not nearly so straightforward. Because the physical structures of both hemispheres appear identical, it wasn't until the 19th century that scientists started hashing out the differences between brain hemispheres. That crucial insight came thanks to a physician by the name of Pierre Paul Broca who was studying the brains of people who had speech difficulties. He found that they all showed signs of damage to a region of their left brains, which came to be called Broca's area. Those with lesions to the same region on the right side of their brains, however, possessed no speech impairments. Clearly, the left side was doing something the right wasn't. Researchers have been attempting to answer the question of why our brains are split, and more importantly, why that matters, ever since. In the more than 150 years since Broca made his discovery, scientists have discovered a great deal about how each half of the brain exerts control over our decisions, as well as how they interact with each other. Less clear, however, as a recent review from researchers at Ruhr-University Bochum in Germany published in the journal Neuron makes clear, is how it happens.