Twins in The Media
Throughout history, the fascination about craniopagus twins has continually increased as neurobiology and the field of neuroscience has become more interesting to the public. Recently in 2011, The New York Times covered a story of two craniopagus twin girls who share a brain and seem to show all different kinds of physiological and emotional responses due to their condition. Krista and Tatiana Hogan, who are now 5 years old, live life just like other 5 year old do. Although seemingly sharing a brain, the two girls showed distinct personalities and behavior. One example was when Krista started drinking her juice Tatiana felt it physically going through her body. In any other set of twins the natural conclusion about the two events would be that Krista's drinking and Tatiana's reaction would be coincidental. But because Krista and Tatiana are connected at their heads, whatever the girls do they do it together. In this case, brain images revealed that there was an attenuated line stretching between the two brains and forming a "thalamic bridge", a bridge connecting the two thalami. Knowing that the thalamus acts as a major control panel within the body, it is believed that the girls share part of this control panel and so when one girl drinks the other one feels it. This along with many other cases, has advanced social media and neurological related research concerning this kind of link between craniopagus twins. Unfortunately, no controlled studies have been done because the twins are so young and their brains are still very maleable and plastic.
Read more about this topic: Craniopagus Twins
Famous quotes containing the words twins in, twins and/or media:
“What if there are not only two nostrils, two eyes, two lobes, and so forth, but two psyches as well, and they are separately equipped? They go through life like Siamese twins inside one person.... They can be just a little different, like identical twins, or they can be vastly different, like good and evil.”
—Norman Mailer (b. 1923)
“What strikes many twin researchers now is not how much identical twins are alike, but rather how different they are, given the same genetic makeup....Multiples don’t walk around in lockstep, talking in unison, thinking identical thoughts. The bond for normal twins, whether they are identical or fraternal, is based on how they, as individuals who are keenly aware of the differences between them, learn to relate to one another.”
—Pamela Patrick Novotny (20th century)
“The corporate grip on opinion in the United States is one of the wonders of the Western World. No First World country has ever managed to eliminate so entirely from its media all objectivity—much less dissent.”
—Gore Vidal (b. 1925)