Question: Why is the brain split up into to parts and does it have anything to do with being right or left handed?

Jen Machin answered on 18 Mar 2015:

Our brain is split into parts because that’s the way we have evolved – and if you look at a lot of animals, then their brains are split into parts too, some less complicated than ours and some more complicated. This depends on what abilities they have/need to survive 🙂 Each part is responsible for certain aspects of our behaviour or control of our body – so there are parts responsible for language, movement, seeing etc. You can’t easily see the difference between these parts of the brain just by looking at them (unless you use a very good microscope).

Our brain can also be divided into two halves (or hemispheres) and these are linked together by lots of fibres which pass messages from one side to another – if you look at a drawing of a brain, you should be able to see these two halves easily. Each of these sides control the opposite side of your body, so the right side of your brain is controlled by the left side of your body (and the other way around!) So for most people, if their right hemisphere is the stronger one (we refer to this as the right hemisphere being dominant) then you will probably be left handed. If the left hemisphere is dominant, you will probably be right handed 🙂