Chapter 2: Set of Exercises Designed to Develop Interhemispheric Interactions

Abstract

The problem of interhemispheric asymmetry and interhemispheric interaction is one of the most relevant problems of neuropsychology. The first data on the lateralization of brain function date back to the time of Hippocrates, when the connections between unilateral head injuries and contralateral convulsions were observed and described. By the beginning of the nineteenth century an ample amount of facts had been amassed concerning the nonequivalence of the left and right hemispheres of the brain. E.D. Khomskaia [2005], discussing the historical aspect of the study of the functional asymmetry of the brain, maintains that the theory of functional asymmetry went through several stages in its development. The first, classical concept of functional asymmetry was based on the postulate that the functions of the right and left hemispheres were absolutely opposite to each other. It was believed that the left hemisphere was completely dominant for speech and all mental processes, while the right one was given a subordinate role in organizing mental activity. Moreover (according to J. H. Jackson), the dominance itself was understood as the leading role of the left hemisphere. By the mid-nineteenth century, the interest of researchers had shifted from the study of the left hemisphere of the brain to the right one. The theory of functional asymmetry, reinforced by new data, was named “the concept of relative dominance” [ibid.]. It was still based on the idea of the opposition of functions of the left and right hemispheres and affirmed the notion of the relative dominance of the left hemisphere in regard to speech function and to speech-mediated mental processes (among righthanders) and the relative dominance of the right hemisphere in organizing nonverbal gnostic functions. This approach was typified by the idea