Definition of "commissurotomy" []

• Surgical incision of a commissure in the body, as one made in the heart to relieve constriction of the mitral valve or one made in the brain to treat certain psychiatric disorders. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "As support, they appeal to commissurotomy patients who after their brain hemispheres are divided seem to act as if each half were itself a functioning mind."
• "In line with the pro-Nicene tradition, while embracing the material constitution analogy as the most accurate, they also give the analogies of three men, a person with multiple personality disorder, and commissurotomy patients who seem to exhibit two “spheres of consciousness”, praising each of these as somewhat “fruitful” and to some degree illuminating (Brower and Rea 2005b)."
• "In the cases he reports, commissurotomy patients are conscious of some object seen in the right side of the visual field by the left hemisphere (controlled so that the information is received by only that hemisphere) until an intention is formed to reach for it with the left hand, controlled by the right hemisphere."