VORB 1

I. The Split Brain
In severe cases of epilepsy, it's necessary to separate the left and right hemispheres of the brain, making a split brain. To separate the brain, you cut through the corpus callosum, thick neural fibers that connect the left and right hemispheres. By doing this, the sides of the brain can't communicate through the conventional pathways. But there is evidence, including a case of Dr. Michael Gazzaniga's, that suggests that the brain doesn't need to communicate for the human to survive. It seems that when the sides can't communicate, one side takes control of the entire body. For example, Joe, Gazzaniga's patient, couldn't see words/objects to the left of a dot, but if he let his brain take over, he could draw the word/object he supposedly hadn't seen. This shows the brain's capacity for modification, or plasticity.

http://thesituationist.wordpress.com/2008/08/26/the-split-brain-and-the-interior-situation-of-theories-of-the-self/

II. Brain Recognizes Transplanted Hand
After a man receives a hand transplant after losing his own in an accident, the brain recognizes it. What the article calls the somatosensory cortex and whatI recognize to be the plain old sensory cortex is responsible for this recognition, as it registers body sensations such as pain. When the hand was lost, the area of the sensory cortex (a part of the parietal lobes) responsible for that hand spent it's time processing facial information (the area that controls the face and the area that controls the hands are close and large) ; that's another perfect example of brain plasticity. But after 35 years of having no hand and minor phantom pain, the area of the brain that was originally responsible for the hand reverted back to it's old function. While his fingers are not represented quite as well on a cortical level, the hand itself works very well under the circumstances.

http://scienceblogs.com/neurophilosophy/2008/10/brain_immediately_recognizes_transplanted_hand.php