RESEARCH
NEUROSCIENCE
ARCHIVING THE LIFE AND WORKS OF ROGER W. SPERRY
DESCRIPTION
In spring 2016, I enrolled in a seminar entitled “Sperry: Psychology’s 1st Nobel,” with little idea of what I was getting into. As you may imagine, this seminar was dedicated to Roger W. Sperry, which, of course, brings up the question: who was Roger W. Sperry? Sperry was a one-of-a-kind neuroscience trailblazer who was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1981 for “his discoveries concerning the functional specialization of the cerebral hemispheres,” as well as the culmination of his other endeavors in neurospecificity and nerve regeneration, equipotentiality, visual functioning and split brain, and consciousness and values.
The class was taught by Antonio Puente, who was the 2016 American Psychological Association president-elect. At the time Sperry was working on split-brain, Puente was a visiting investigator with him. During their time together, they built a special relationship. When Sperry passed away in 1994, Puente made one of his routine trips to Caltech. However, this time, it was to dismantle Sperry’s laboratory. Puente directed where Sperry’s materials would go. Ultimately, laboratory materials were sent to the Smithsonian National Museum of American History, the Archives of the History of American Psychology, the Nobel Museum, Oberlin College, and UNCW. Additionally, Mrs. Norma Sperry kept a substantial amount of materials. Although Sperry won the Nobel in 1981, systematic documentation of his work was very limited.
Sperry using himself to study action currents
The purpose of the class was simple: create an electronic archive of Sperry’s life and works so that his legacy and contributions can live on. We decided the best way to do this was in the form of a website. We split into teams to archive Sperry’s experiments and subsequent publications, photos, experimental stimuli, notebooks, drawings, etc. The first half of the discussion-based seminar was spent learning the science behind the topics Sperry researched, as well as the principles he discovered. During the second half, we dealt with logistics as we discussed the progress our teams made during the week. This concludes the background information I will give for now, however, we wrote a paper entitled “Archiving Psychology’s First Nobel Prize Winner: Challenges and Successes of Archiving the Life and Works of Roger W. Sperry,” that goes into much more detail if you are interested.
This project truly provided a once in a lifetime learning experience. One of the ways in which I learned the principles Sperry discovered was by studying his personal notebooks, drawings, photos, etc. as I archived them. In addition to a transformative learning experience, I had the opportunity gain a unique perspective on project management in the role of assistant project manager.
Diagram of split-brain surgery (Corpus Callosum is severed)
PRESENTATIONS
Soni BS, Rios J, Collie KM, Smelik CJ, Giordano DJ, Kantor R, Puente AE. The Case of LB: the Best Known and Most Studied Split-Brain Patient. Poster presented at: 125th American Psychological Association Annual Convention; August 3-6, 2017, Washington, DC.
Smelik CJ, Collie KM, Soni BS, Rios J, Giordano DJ, Kantor R, Puente AE. Roger W. Sperry: How Many Split-Brain Patients It Took to be Awarded Psychology’s First Nobel Prize. Poster presented at: 125th American Psychological Association Annual Convention; August 3-6, 2017, Washington, DC.
Giordano DJ, Collie KM, Rioz J, Smelik CJ, Soni BS, Brantley LA, Piccolino AL, Miller VF, Daniel GD, Puente AE. Archiving Psychology’s First Nobel Prize Winner: Challenges and Successes of Archiving the Life and Works of Roger W. Sperry. Paper presented at: 109th Annual Meeting of the Southern Society for Philosophy and Psychology; March 22-24, 2017, Savannah, GA.