Roger W. Sperry, a major contributor to at least three scientific fields--developmental neurobiology, experimental psychobiology, and human split-brain studies--conducted pioneering research in the functions of the left and right hemispheres of the brain. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for physiology or medicine in 1981. The system of split-brain research that Sperry enabled scientists to better understand the workings of the human brain.

Sperry was born on August 20, 1913, in Hartford, Connecticut, to Francis Bushnell Sperry, a banker, and Florence Kramer Sperry. When Sperry was 11 years old, his father died and his mother returned to school and took work as an assistant to a high school principal. Sperry attended local public schools through high school and then went to Oberlin College in Ohio on a scholarship. There, he competed on the track team and was captain of the basketball squad. Although he majored in English, Sperry was especially interested in...