Michael Gazzaniga

Michael Gazzaniga
Born	(1939-12-12) December 12, 1939
Residence	Santa Barbara, California
Citizenship	United States
Nationality	United States
Fields	Psychology, neuroscience
Institutions	University of California, Santa Barbara, SAGE Center for the Study of the Mind
Alma mater	Dartmouth College, California Institute of Technology
Doctoral advisor	Roger Sperry
Doctoral students	Joseph E. LeDoux
Known for	Split-brain research, cerebral lateralization, cognitive neuroscience
Notable awards	Elected to the National Academy of Sciences (2011)

Michael S. Gazzaniga (born December 12, 1939) is a professor of psychology at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where he heads the new SAGE Center for the Study of the Mind. He is one of the leading researchers in cognitive neuroscience, the study of the neural basis of mind. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, the Institute of Medicine, and the National Academy of Sciences.

Biography

In 1961, Gazzaniga graduated from Dartmouth College. In 1964, he received a Ph.D. in psychobiology from the California Institute of Technology, where he worked under the guidance of Roger Sperry, with primary responsibility for initiating human split-brain research. In his subsequent work he has made important advances in our understanding of functional lateralization in the brain and how the cerebral hemispheres communicate with one another.

Gazzaniga's publication career includes books for a general audience such as The Social Brain, Mind Matters, Nature's Mind, The Ethical Brain and Who's in Charge?. He is also the editor of the The Cognitive Neurosciences book series published by the MIT Press, which features the work of nearly 200 scientists and is a sourcebook for the field. His last monograph is entitled Who's in Charge?: Free Will and the Science of the Brain. It was published by HarperCollins in 2011 [1].

Gazzaniga founded the Centers for Cognitive Neuroscience at the University of California, Davis and at Dartmouth College, the Neuroscience Institute, and the Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, of which he is the Editor-in-Chief Emeritus. Gazzaniga was a member of U.S. President George W. Bush's Council on Bioethics. He was also the Director of the Law and Neuroscience Project, a project to study the intersection of law and neuroscience.

Cultural influence

Gazzaniga's work is referenced in the book Peace on Earth by Stanisław Lem.

Publications

• Gazzaniga, Michael S. (1970). The Bisected Brain. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts. ISBN 978-0-390-35278-1. 
• Gazzaniga, Michael S.; LeDoux, Joseph E. (1978). The Integrated Mind. New York: Plenum Pr. ISBN 978-0-306-31085-0. 
• Gazzaniga, Michael S. (1987). Social Brain: Discovering the Networks of the Mind. Basic Books. ISBN 978-0-465-07850-9. 
• Gazzaniga, Michael S. (1988). Mind Matters: How Mind and Brain Interact to Create our Conscious Lives. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. ISBN 978-0-395-50095-8. 
• Gazzaniga, Michael S. (1992). Nature's Mind: The Biological Roots of Thinking, Emotions, Sexuality, Language and Intelligence. New York: BasicBooks. ISBN 978-0-465-04863-2. 
• Gazzaniga, Michael S. (2000). The Mind's Past. Berkeley, Calif: University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-22486-5. 
• Gazzaniga, Michael S. (2005). The Ethical Brain. New York [u.a.]: Dana Press. ISBN 978-1-932594-01-0. 
• Gazzaniga, Michael S.; Ivry, Richard B.; Mangun, George R. (2009). Cognitive Neuroscience: The Biology of the Mind (3rd ed.). New York: W.W. Norton. ISBN 978-0-393-92795-5. 
• Gazzaniga, Michael S. (2009). Human: The Science Behind What Makes Us Unique (1st ed.). New York: Harper Perennial. ISBN 978-0-06-089289-0. 
• Gazzaniga, Michael S. (2011). Who's in Charge?: Free Will and the Science of the Brain (1st ed.). New York, NY: Ecco. ISBN 978-0-06-190610-7. 

See also

• Attentional shift
• Left brain interpreter

External links

• University of California Santa Barbara faculty web page
• The Law and Neuroscience Project
• Sage Center for the Study of the Mind
• "The Effects of Crack" — an exchange between Gazzaniga and the conservative commentator William F. Buckley, Jr.
• Video of Gazzaniga demonstrating the effects of split brain surgery
• Video (and audio) of interview/discussion with Gazzaniga by Carl Zimmer on Bloggingheads.tv