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On the other hand: including left-handers in cognitive neuroscience and neurogenetics

Nature Reviews Neuroscience volume 15, pages 193–201 (2014)Cite this article

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Abstract

Left-handers are often excluded from study cohorts in neuroscience and neurogenetics in order to reduce variance in the data. However, recent investigations have shown that the inclusion or targeted recruitment of left-handers can be informative in studies on a range of topics, such as cerebral lateralization and the genetic underpinning of asymmetrical brain development. Left-handed individuals represent a substantial portion of the human population and therefore left-handedness falls within the normal range of human diversity; thus, it is important to account for this variation in our understanding of brain functioning. We call for neuroscientists and neurogeneticists to recognize the potential of studying this often-discarded group of research subjects.

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Figure 1: Hemispheric activation differences in left- and right-handers during action verb reading.
Figure 2: Language and visuospatial activations in left-handers with typical and atypical language lateralization.
Figure 3: Left- and right-handers show differences in lateralization during face perception.

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Acknowledgements

S.E.F. and C.F. acknowledge support from the Max Planck Society.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Radboud University Nijmegen, Nijmegen, 6525 EN, The Netherlands

    Roel M. Willems, Simon E. Fisher & Clyde Francks

  2. Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen, 6525 XD, The Netherlands

    Roel M. Willems, Simon E. Fisher & Clyde Francks

  3. Department of Experimental Psychology, Ghent University, Ghent, 9000, Belgium

    Lise Van der Haegen

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  1. Roel M. Willems
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  2. Lise Van der Haegen
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  3. Simon E. Fisher
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  4. Clyde Francks
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Correspondence to Roel M. Willems or Clyde Francks.

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FURTHER INFORMATION

Cognomics

PowerPoint slides

Glossary

Ambidextrous

The ability to use both hands equally well. People of mixed handedness often do have hand preferences in individual tasks but no strong, overall bias across tasks.

Gene expression profiling

The measurement of mRNA expression of thousands of genes simultaneously using a quantitative technique.

Imprinted

An imprinted gene is a gene for which the copies that are inherited from father and mother are active to different degrees.

Laterality index

A quantitative index of left–right asymmetry. For handedness, this is typically based on questionnaires or tasks that assess degrees of hand preference or relative hand motor skill.

Lexical decision task

A task in which participants have to decide whether a string of letters forms an existing word or not. The speed with which participants make their decision is used as a measure for semantic memory of a word or of the strength of association between words.

Pleiotropic

Genetic effects that influence the development of multiple, distinct traits.

Praxis

The ability to perform purposeful movements. These movements can be learned gestures or a pantomime of tool use.

Situs inversus

A condition in which the position of visceral organs is reversed compared with that in the majority of the population.

Split-brain patients

In split-brain patients, the corpus callosum (fibre bundles connecting the two hemispheres of the brain) is severely damaged or completely lesioned. This condition provides the possibility to study each hemisphere in isolation, providing insights into functional specialization of the hemispheres.

Tool-use pantomime task

A task in which participants are asked to mimic the hand movements that are related to tools presented on a screen. They execute the actions while holding an imaginary tool (for example, opening a bottle with a bottle opener).

Verb-generation task

A task in which participants are presented with a noun and have to generate verbs that go together with that noun (for example, for 'bread', responses could be 'eat' and 'slice').

Word-generation task

A task that is often used to study neural correlates of language production. In one form of this task, a letter is presented on the screen and the participant is asked to produce as many words starting with this letter as he or she can in a certain amount of time.

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Willems, R., der Haegen, L., Fisher, S. et al. On the other hand: including left-handers in cognitive neuroscience and neurogenetics. Nat Rev Neurosci 15, 193–201 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrn3679

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