Brain asymmetry: the facts and why they matter

Delivered by the most outstanding academics in the UK and beyond, the British Academy’s flagship Lecture programme showcases the very best scholarship in the humanities and social sciences.

About the event

Across the animal kingdom, brain asymmetry is the rule rather than the exception. From our hominid ancestors to birds, fish, and reptiles, every creature with a brain exhibits striking differences in how its two hemispheres are structured and how they function.

Yet the fundamental question remains: why?

Many long-held assumptions about lateralisation have proven mistaken. This lecture explores the evolutionary origins of the divided brain, the distinct purposes each hemisphere serves, and how this fundamental asymmetry shapes the way human beings understand themselves and perceive the world around them.

Speaker: Dr Iain McGilchrist

Dr Iain McGilchrist is a former Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, a Fellow of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. He is the author of The Master and his Emissary, and The Matter with Things.

Chair: Professor Jo Gill

Professor Jo Gill is the Vice-Principal and Head of the College of Arts & Humanities at the University of Glasgow. Jo's research and teaching interests lie in poetry, American literature and the visual arts; her most recent monograph, supported by a Leverhulme Research Fellowship, was Modern American Poetry & the Architectural Imagination: The Harmony of Forms (OUP 2023). Jo worked in newspapers, publishing (Faber & Faber, and Cassell & Co.) and the charity sector prior to taking up an academic career. In addition to her academic role at Glasgow, Jo is co-Chair of the RG Deans of Arts & Humanities Network; Deputy Chair of the Scottish Book Trust and a Governor at South Lanarkshire College where she chairs the Learning & Teaching Committee. She was previously a member of the 93% Club Industry Advisory Board.

Image credit: Barbey AK, Colom R, Paul EJ et al, ‘Architecture of fluid intelligence and working memory revealed by lesion mapping’, Brain Structure and Function, 2014, 219(2), 485–94 (reproduced in The Matter with Things).