Scientists have officially found four spots in our DNA that are associated in determine whether we write with our right and left hand. Of the four gene regions, three of them deal with proteins involved in brain development and structure. This was deduced from a study of genetics analysis across 400,00 people in the United Kingdom. Of these 400,000, 38,000 of these people were left handed. This study also found that these people that were left handed communicated between the language regions of their right and left brain more efficiently than those in the study that are right handed. This means that they have some sort of "advantage" in verbal tasks. Also, various studies of twins show that genes account for 25% of the variation in left or right handedness. Another study found that the link between left handedness and their respective genetic regions also deal with Parkinson's disease and and schizophrenia. Left handed individuals have a slightly reduced risk of Parkinson's disease, but also have a slightly increase risk for schizophrenia. I think this is a remarkable discovery and is a surprise to me, considering that I believed right or left handedness was simply based upon which hand your parents helped to teach you to write with, or whichever had you took and immediate preference to.
Original Article: https://www.usnews.com/news/health-news/articles/2019-09-05/scientists-id-genes-tied-to-left-handedness
Supporting Article: https://geneticliteracyproject.org/2016/08/29/left-handedness-genes-and-a-matter-of-chance/
This is an amazing discovery. I always find it fascinating to learn about the differences between the right and left brain. I wonder what they would find in a study using ambidextrous people.
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