Severance: the real cognitive neuroscience behind the Apple TV+ show’s ‘severance procedure’

By Rachael Elward, Senior Lecturer, Neuroscience and Neuropsychology, London South Bank University
Lauren Ford, PhD candidate in cognitive neuroscience, London South Bank University

Severance, which imagines a world where a person’s work and personal lives are surgically separated, will soon return to Apple TV+ for a second season. While the concept of this gripping piece of science fiction is far-fetched, it touches on some interesting neuroscience. Can a person’s mind really be surgically split in two?

Remarkably, “split-brain” patients have existed since the 1940s. To control epilepsy symptoms, these patients underwent a surgery to separate the left and right hemispheres.…

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