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.

Left Handedness is not " in the genes"

It is said that over 10 % of Americans are left handed an the same goes for other countries. Some researches say they are not exactly sure what causes people to be left or right handed , but Professor Armur form University of Nottingham and Dr. Davison of  University College of London are suggesting that left handedness does not come from genes therefore isn't inherited. This study used 2,000 set of twins from London Twin Research Unit. In this study researchers compared left and right handedness and looked at over 4,000 people and their genome and found no link to handedness and genes. There research in this article has challenged a previous study that said handedness was linked to a gene called PCSK6. Professor Armur and Dr. Davison believe that there should be a noticeable difference between right and left do to differences in genetic variation. At the end of their study they have determined that handedness is a mixture or a combination of genes, environment, and cultural pressure to conform.

I choose this article because I thought it was interesting and for the fact that the question of handedness was still left some what unanswered because even though the article ends with some ideas about what causes handedness I get the feeling that researchers still are not exactly sure on what the true causes for handedness are. I also found it interesting for the article to included that it could be pressure from  people to conform to society that makes people be left or right handed. I have heard of people forcing or teaching their children to be right handed so I found it easy to correlate the information form this article to real life.  

  

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/267047.php