Angeles. The purpose of this tele-robotic surgery is to sever the corpus callosum, which is located at the base of the longitudinal fissure between the two hemispheres of the brain. Can anyone tell me what the corpus callosum does?'
'It's the cable that carries data between the two halves of the brain,' a girl answered.
'The corpus callosum,' Laura lectured from the center of the 'bowl' of the steeply tiered rows of seats, 'is the principal means of communication between the two cerebral hemispheres — between the left and right halves of the brain. There are numerous other interfaces as well, however.'
'Why're they doing that to the guy?' another student asked with a quiver in his voice. The freshman sounded as if he were being asked to witness a ritualistic mutilation.
'In certain cases of severe epilepsy,' Laura answered, 'the radical procedure of severing the corpus callosum can prevent a seizure begun in one hemisphere from spreading to the other. As we've been discussing, the architecture of the human brain involves a high degree of interconnection. The 'storm' of electrochemical disturbance caused by an epileptic seizure is quickly transmitted to other brain cells, sparking other pockets of disturbance there and resulting in a major seizure. This patient has spent his life going from one hospital to the next. He is willing to make the trade-off of a split brain for no seizures.'
The looks on her students' faces ranged from quiet nausea to outright revulsion. One young woman had piled up her books and turned to face completely away from the classroom's screen.
'I know this wasn't in the syllabus for today's class,' Laura reasoned, 'and I apologize for not preparing you better, but we didn't know this offering was available over the Web until late yesterday. As gruesome as you may think this is, I'm sure you'll find it enlightening. I want you to watch the procedure because it's a rare opportunity to witness interaction directly with a human brain, not indirectly through a patient's normal senses. Nature's laboratory has given us this opportunity, and we as scientists must take what we're given.'
Someone murmured a crack that drew nervous giggles from the students.
'All right, Doug, can you hear me okay?' the surgeon asked.
'Yep,' the boy replied — the scene on the left switching briefly to provide a broader perspective on the surgical theater. Groans rose from the class on sight of the boy's face and shaved head protruding from under the bright green cloth. The picture quickly shifted back to its close-up of the brain's surface.
'You mean they'll cut that guy's brain open with him awake like that?' one of the students asked — aghast.
'They'll put him under after they've found their route in. But they had to keep him conscious so he could report what he experienced from the stimulation.'
'Okay, Doug,' the doctor said, 'the program is up and running.'
'I don't feel anything,' the patient said in reply, his voice trembling as the robotic arm holding the stylus descended toward his brain's surface — slowing as it neared. The physician on the right side of the split screen sat back with a notepad and watched his monitor. 'Oh, wow!' the boy shouted suddenly.
'Six-oh-six-oh-eight-four-two!' he sang out. 'I been waitin' for you! Dial the number… and call. Da-da-da-da- da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da. Get no… answer at all! Da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-dada- da.'
'Is that a song?' the surgeon interrupted, and the electro stimulator rose a few millimeters.
'Yeah! The B-52s!' the boy said. 'My dad used to listen to them all the time.'
'And you can hear it when we stimulate this area right here?'
The surgeon tapped at the keyboard from his Maryland office, and the robotic arm in California lowered.
'Wow! There it is again! Just like it's playin' in my head!'
'You don't have to shout.'
'Sorry.'
'The patient is having a memory experience,' Laura explained, 'of listening to a song. If we can find an old CD of that song, we can later compare the recording of the patient singing to the CD's soundtrack. We'll probably find it as synchronized with the original as if he had headphones on and was singing along with the music.'
'Purple,' the boy said from the surgical theater.
'Do you see anything?' the doctor asked. 'What do you see that's purple?'
'Nothing. Just purple. That's all. The color purple.'
'We'll be getting to color later in the semester,' Laura interjected. 'For now, just remember the subject's reported experience. He 'sees' and reports 'purple,' but it's not something that's purple. It's just the color purple that he's experiencing. Your assignment for the next class is to imagine a purple cow. Close your eyes and imagine it in as much detail as possible. Imagine its eyes, its ears, its hooves, everything. Then, when you're done, think about this. Did you 'see' the color purple, or did you just 'think' purple? If you didn't 'see' the color, what was it that made the cow purple?'
It was when Laura finished giving the assignment that she realized the satellite coverage of the surgery had grown silent. The tense doctor was leaning forward in his chair. In the other picture, the electro stimulator dull point rested lightly against the shiny surface of the cortex, but the patient said nothing.
'Doug?' the doctor called out, adjusting his glasses and shifting anxiously in his seat. 'What are you experiencing now, Doug? Anything?' There was no answer.
'Doug, you've got to talk to me. What is it? Is it a memory of some kind?'
'I don't wanna talk about it.'
'Son, you've got to…'
'Get that thing off my head!' The cloth around the incision shook. The view shifted again to take in the operating room. Two nurses clad in bright green scrubs and face masks rushed to the patient's side as his hands jerked up against the black nylon restraints. 'Stop it! Stop it!' Doug yelled, but when the picture shifted back to a close-up, the robot arm maintained the steady pressure of the stylus against his brain.
'What's happening?' one of Laura's students asked in a trembling voice — a look of horror on her face.
'The damn computer's making him remember something he doesn't want to!' another student answered.
'Doug,' the surgeon said calmly from the screen on the right, 'if you want, I can try to get rid of whatever it is that's bothering you. A little stronger stimulation of the area and I can probably…'
'Just leave me alone! I said quit it! And I mean right now!'
'Okay, okay. Calm down.' The physician began tapping at his terminal. Still, however, the robotic arm pressed the stimulator down. Still Doug screamed. 'Stop! Please, sto-o-op!' he shrieked and began to cry. 'Don't do that anymore! Please, please, don't make me…!'
The bars of a color test pattern replaced the picture of the jerking, increasingly spasmodic motions of the epileptic boy and of the robotic arm, carefully holding the electro stimulator perfectly still in its programmed place.
2
Laura closed her office door and headed straight for her chair with Gray's letter.
The door burst open behind her, and she jumped with a start.
'You look like you've seen a ghost,' Jonathan Sanders, her office neighbor and closest friend, said as he sauntered in and slumped into the sofa opposite her desk. Laura sank into her chair, drawing a ragged breath and trying to settle her pounding heart.
'Listen,' Jonathan began in an apologetic tone, 'your secretary told me about the flood of E-mails you got over the weekend from lovesick academics all around our fine institution. I'm sorry about doing that profile thing. Were there any keepers?'
She shook her head. 'I'm sorry, Laura,' Jonathan continued.
'It was just a joke. I thought you'd get a kick out of it. The program had such a catchy title—'Rate Your Mate.' Some grad student over at MIT uploaded it onto the university network. It's all the rage, you know, but I am sorry.'
Laura looked up at him and nodded, wishing he'd leave her alone to think.
