What is Roger Wolcott Sperry?
{{Infobox scientist | name = Roger Sperry |birth_name = Roger Wolcott Sperry |image = Roger Wolcott Sperry.jpg |birth_date = {{Birth-date|August 20, 2009|August 20, 1913}} |birth_place = [[Hartford, Connecticut]] |death_date = {{death-date|April 17, 1994|April 17, 1994}} (aged 80) |death_place = [[Pasadena, California]] |residence = |citizenship = |nationality = |ethnicity = |field = [[Neuropsychology]] |work_institutions = |alma_mater = {{Plainlist| * [[Oberlin College]] * [[University of Chicago]] (PhD)}} | thesis_title = Functional results of crossing nerves and transposing muscles in the fore and hind limbs of the rat | thesis_url = http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/48361305 | thesis_year = 1941 |doctoral_advisor = [[Paul Alfred Weiss|Paul A. Weiss]] |doctoral_students = |known_for = {{Plainlist| * [[Split-brain]] research * [[Chemoaffinity hypothesis]]}} |influences = |influenced = |prizes = [[Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine]] (1981) |religion = |footnotes = |signature = | website = {{URL|http://rogersperry.org}} }} '''Roger Wolcott Sperry''' (August 20, 1913 – April 17, 1994) was an [[United States|American]] [[neurobiology|neurobiologist]] and [[Nobel Prize]] winner. He shared the 1981 [[Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine]] with [[David Hubel]] and [[Torsten Wiesel]]. In 1989, Sperry also received the National Medal of Science. Before Sperry's experiments, some research evidence seemed to indicate that areas of the [[cerebral cortex]] were largely interchangeable. In his early experiments, Sperry showed that the opposite was true: after early development, circuits of the [[brain]] are largely [[hardwired]]. That is, they are set with a particular function. Sperry's work was on 'split-brain' research. In his Nobel-winning work, Sperry tested ten patients who had undergone an operation developed in 1940 by William Van Wagenen, a ne