Work

Functional activation in motor cortex reflects the direction and the degree of handedness

Year: 1997

Type: article

Abstract: Handedness is the clearest example of behavioral lateralization in humans. It is not known whether the obvious asymmetry manifested by hand preference is associated with similar asymmetry in brain activation during movement. We examined the functional activation in cortical motor areas during movement of the dominant and nondominant hand in groups of right-handed and left-handed subjects and found that use of the dominant hand was associated with a greater volume of activation in the contralateral motor cortex. Furthermore, there was a separate relation between the degree of handedness and the extent of functional lateralization in the motor cortex. The patterns of functional activation associated with the direction and degree of handedness suggest that these aspects are independent and are coded separately in the brain.

Source: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

DOI: 10.1073/pnas.94.25.14015

Authors: Paul Dassonville, Xiao-Hong Zhu, Kâmil Ugurbil, Seong-Gi Kim, James Ashe

Institutions: University of Minnesota, Minneapolis VA Medical Center

Language: English

Topic: Hemispheric Asymmetry in Neuroscience

Subfield: Cognitive Neuroscience

Field: Neuroscience

Domain: Life Sciences

Open Access status: green

Funders: U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, Dana Foundation, National Institutes of Health, National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke

Awards: G769011507, FUNCTIONAL MRI OF HUMAN MOTOR CORTEX, G9000228267