Lefties, Language, and Lateralization

Many people may recognize a diagram of the brain that shows the left side as the "mathematical" side of the brain and the right side of the brain as the "artistic" side of the brain. In fact, this wiring is slightly different for everyone. This is a well-known myth. However, according to an article written by Bob Grant, there may be a correlation between handedness and behaviors and where language processing takes place. Particularly, he writes, "95% of right-handed people do the bulk of language processing in the left hemisphere of their cerebral cortex, while only 75% of left-handers show the same pattern."

What is so interesting about this is that it goes to show that between individuals there is so much variation between the way their brains are wired, yet the function is essentially the same, according to Metten Somers, a psychiatrist at University Medical Center Utrecht in the Netherlands.
I think the most interesting thing is that this has such a clear significance for our day to day lives, seeing as how we are constantly meeting people who are hardwired differently.

It was long thought that handedness was controlled by a single gene, but Somers has done research to dispute this. He and his colleagues studied a large group of "lefties" and performed "genetic linkage analyses of left-handedness, atypical lateralization, and degree of language lateralization in the brain." They realized it is "more complicated" and say it makes more sense for there to be multiple genes controlling this.