scholarly journals Hemispheric Dominance for Task Dependent Frontal Lobe Function & Its Relationship to Language Lateralization and Handedness

Author(s):  
Barshen Habelhah ◽  
Kennedy D Mahdavi ◽  
Margaret A Zielinksi ◽  
Sergio B Becerra ◽  
Alexander Bystritsky ◽  
...  

Abstract The present study investigates a potential method to optimize effective functional localization strategies for both language regions and the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC) while in a scanner. This functional task combines elements of creative problem solving, executive decision making based on an internal rule set, and working memory. Retrospective analysis was performed on a total of 58 unique participants (40% female, Mage = 42.84 years, SDage = 16.51). Of these participants, 47 were classified as right-handed, 7 were classified as left-handed, and 4 were classified as “mixed-handed” or ambidextrous according to the Edinburgh Handedness Inventory. The imaging data was judged by two blinded investigators to assess language and dlPFC dominance while using the motor cortex activitation to confirm that participants engaged in the task. We show that 25% of right handed individuals seem to have a dominant dlPFC localized to the right hemisphere rather than the assumed left, and more than a quarter of left handers were dominant in their left hemisphere. Given the clinical relevance of dlPFC dominance, this task appears to be an evidence-based technique for determining appropriate dlPFC target for the purposes of neuromodulation (e.g. TMS).

2015 ◽  
Vol 73 (10) ◽  
pp. 834-839 ◽  
Author(s):  
Núbia Maria Freire Vieira Lima ◽  
Karina Cândido Menegatti ◽  
Érica Yu ◽  
Natália Yumi Sacomoto ◽  
Thais Botossi Scalha ◽  
...  

Objective To investigate somatosensory deficits in the ipsilesional wrist and hand in chronic stroke patients and correlate these deficits with contralesional sensorimotor dysfunctions, functional testing, laterality and handedness.Methods Fifty subjects (twenty-two healthy volunteers and twenty-eight stroke patients) underwent evaluation with Semmes-Weinstein monofilaments, the sensory and motor Fugl-Meyer Assessment, the Nottingham Sensory Assessment in both wrists and hands and functional tests.Results Twenty-five patients had sensory changes in the wrist and hand contralateral to the stroke, and eighteen patients (64%) had sensory deficits in the ipsilesional wrist and hand. The most significant ipsilesional sensory loss was observed in the left-handed patients. We found that the patients with brain damage in the right hemisphere had better scores for ipsilesional tactile sensation.Conclusions A reduction in ipsilesional conscious proprioception, tactile or thermal sensation was found in stroke subjects. Right hemisphere damage and right-handed subjects had better scores in ipsilesional tactile sensation.


1988 ◽  
Vol 67 (2) ◽  
pp. 555-561 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mary Ann Valentino ◽  
James W. Brown ◽  
W. A. Cronan-Hillix

Aesthetic preferences for photographs with the main focal content either to the left or right of the photograph's center were examined in right- and left-handed subjects. Verbal responses or manual responses were required. In one experiment with 261 introductory psychology student-subjects, left-handers more often preferred photographs with the more important part on the left (“left-geared”) than did right-handers. Exp. 2, involving 84 right-handed student subjects, showed that left-geared photographs presented on the left side were preferred more often than left-geared photographs presented on the right side, and left-geared photographs presented on the left side were more often chosen when a left-handed manual response was required. Interactions between handedness, position of the stimulus, language hemisphere, and response mode make it extremely difficult to ascertain whether the right hemisphere is really more involved in aesthetic decisions.


1992 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 546-553 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steven Warach ◽  
Ruben C. Gur ◽  
Raquel E. Gur ◽  
Brett E. Skolnick ◽  
Walter D. Obrist ◽  
...  

We previously reported decreased mean CBF between consecutive resting conditions, ascribed to habituation. Here we address the regional specificity of habituation over three consecutive flow studies. Regional CBF (rCBF) was measured in 55 adults (12 right-handed men, 12 right-handed women, 14 left-handed men, 17 left-handed women), with the 133Xe inhalation technique, during three conditions: Resting, verbal tasks (analogies), and spatial tasks (line orientation). Changes in rCBF attributable to the cognitive tasks were eliminated by correcting these values to a resting equivalent. There was a progressive decrease in mean rCBF over time, reflecting habituation. This effect differed by region, with specificity at frontal (prefrontal, inferior frontal, midfrontal, superior frontal) and inferior parietal regions. In the inferior parietal region, habituation was more marked in the left than the right hemisphere. Right-handers showed greater habituation than did left-handers. There was no sex difference in global habituation, but males showed greater left whereas females showed greater right hemispheric habituation. The results suggest that habituation to the experimental setting has measurable effects on rCBF, which are differently lateralized for men and women. These effects are superimposed on task activation and are most pronounced in regions that have been implicated in attentional processes. Thus, regional decrement in brain activity related to habituation seems to complement attentional effects, suggesting a neural network for habituation reciprocating that for attention.


2016 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mihovil Mladinov ◽  
Goran Sedmak ◽  
Heidi R. Fuller ◽  
Mirjana Babić Leko ◽  
Davor Mayer ◽  
...  

AbstractSchizophrenia is a complex polygenic disorder of unknown etiology. Over 3,000 candidate genes associated with schizophrenia have been reported, most of which being mentioned only once. Alterations in cognitive processing - working memory, metacognition and mentalization - represent a core feature of schizophrenia, which indicates the involvement of the prefrontal cortex in the pathophysiology of this disorder. Hence we compared the gene expression in postmortem tissue from the left and right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC, Brodmann's area 46), and the medial part of the orbitofrontal cortex (MOFC, Brodmann's area 11/12), in six patients with schizophrenia and six control brains. Although in the past decade several studies performed transcriptome profiling in schizophrenia, this is the first study to investigate both hemispheres, providing new knowledge about possible brain asymmetry at the level of gene expression and its relation to schizophrenia. We found that in the left hemisphere, twelve genes from the DLPFC and eight genes from the MOFC were differentially expressed in patients with schizophrenia compared to controls. In the right hemisphere there was only one gene differentially expressed in the MOFC. We reproduce the involvement of previously reported genes TARDBP and HNRNPC in the pathogenesis of schizophrenia, and report seven novel genes:


1992 ◽  
Vol 50 (1) ◽  
pp. 43-49 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susana Camposano ◽  
Fernando Lolas

Left handers and women show less anatomical brain asymmetry, larger corpus callosum and more bilateral representation of specific functions. Sensory and cognitive components of cortical auditory evoked potentials (AEF) have been shown to be asymmetric in right handed males and to be influenced by stimulus intensity. In this study the influence of sex, handedness and stimulus intensity upon AEP components is investigated under basal conditions of passive attention. 14 right handed males, 14 right handed females, 14 left handed males, and 14 left handed females were studied while lying awake and paying passive attention to auditory stimulation (series of 100 binaural clicks, duration 1 msec, rate 1/sec, at four intensities). Cz, C3 and C4 referenced to linked mastoids and right EOG were recorded. Analysis time was 400 msec, average evoked potentials were based on 100 clicks. Stimulus intensity and gender affect early sensory components (P1N1 and N1P2) at central leads, asymmetry is influenced only by handedness, right handers showing larger P1N1 amplitudes over the right hemisphere.


2011 ◽  
Vol 366 (1564) ◽  
pp. 572-585 ◽  
Author(s):  
L. Pisella ◽  
N. Alahyane ◽  
A. Blangero ◽  
F. Thery ◽  
S. Blanc ◽  
...  

We review evidence showing a right-hemispheric dominance for visuo-spatial processing and representation in humans. Accordingly, visual disorganization symptoms (intuitively related to remapping impairments) are observed in both neglect and constructional apraxia. More specifically, we review findings from the intervening saccade paradigm in humans—and present additional original data—which suggest a specific role of the asymmetrical network at the temporo-parietal junction (TPJ) in the right hemisphere in visual remapping: following damage to the right dorsal posterior parietal cortex (PPC) as well as part of the corpus callosum connecting the PPC to the frontal lobes, patient OK in a double-step saccadic task exhibited an impairment when the second saccade had to be directed rightward . This singular and lateralized deficit cannot result solely from the patient's cortical lesion and, therefore, we propose that it is due to his callosal lesion that may specifically interrupt the interhemispheric transfer of information necessary to execute accurate rightward saccades towards a remapped target location. This suggests a specialized right-hemispheric network for visuo-spatial remapping that subsequently transfers target location information to downstream planning regions, which are symmetrically organized.


2005 ◽  
Vol 25 (9) ◽  
pp. 1197-1208 ◽  
Author(s):  
Agnes Flöel ◽  
Andreas Jansen ◽  
Michael Deppe ◽  
Martin Kanowski ◽  
Carsten Konrad ◽  
...  

The right hemisphere is predominantly involved in tasks associated with spatial attention. However, left hemispheric dominance for spatial attention can be found in healthy individuals, and both spatial attention and language can be lateralized to the same hemisphere. Little is known about the underlying regional distribution of neural activation in these ‘atypical’ individuals. Previously a large number of healthy subjects were screened for hemispheric dominance of visuospatial attention and language, using functional Doppler ultrasonography. From this group, subjects were chosen who were ‘atypical’ for hemispheric dominance of visuospatial attention and language, and their pattern of brain activation was studied with functional magnetic resonance imaging during a task probing spatial attention. Right-handed subjects with the ‘typical’ pattern of brain organization served as control subjects. It was found that subjects with an inverted lateralization of language and spatial attention (language right, attention left) recruited left-hemispheric areas in the attention task, homotopic to those recruited by control subjects in the right hemisphere. Subjects with lateralization of both language and attention to the right hemisphere activated an attentional network in the right hemisphere that was comparable to control subjects. The present findings suggest that not the hemispheric side, but the intrahemispheric pattern of activation is the distinct feature for the neural processes underlying language and attention.


Author(s):  
Chiara Ferrari ◽  
Lucile Gamond ◽  
Marcello Gallucci ◽  
Tomaso Vecchi ◽  
Zaira Cattaneo

Abstract. Converging neuroimaging and patient data suggest that the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) is involved in emotional processing. However, it is still not clear whether the DLPFC in the left and right hemisphere is differentially involved in emotion recognition depending on the emotion considered. Here we used transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) to shed light on the possible causal role of the left and right DLPFC in encoding valence of positive and negative emotional facial expressions. Participants were required to indicate whether a series of faces displayed a positive or negative expression, while TMS was delivered over the right DLPFC, the left DLPFC, and a control site (vertex). Interfering with activity in both the left and right DLPFC delayed valence categorization (compared to control stimulation) to a similar extent irrespective of emotion type. Overall, we failed to demonstrate any valence-related lateralization in the DLPFC by using TMS. Possible methodological limitations are discussed.


2005 ◽  
Vol 100 (3) ◽  
pp. 734-742 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mohammad Ali Goodarzi ◽  
Mohammad Reza Taghavi ◽  
Mohammad Reza Zoughi

Cerebral lateralization of global-local processing of 70 left-handed and 70 right-handed students was compared using a computerized global-local task in a half-visual field paradigm. Analysis showed that left-handed individuals were slower than right-handed individuals in processing Globally Directed stimuli presented to the left visual field (right hemisphere). In addition, left-handed individuals showed smaller local superiority in the left hemisphere to the right-handed individuals. These findings are more consistent with Levy's prediction of spatial inferiority of left-handed individuals than Geschwind and Galaburda's or Annett's hypotheses.


1987 ◽  
Vol 30 (3) ◽  
pp. 306-310 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael P. Rastatter ◽  
Carl Dell

The present study was an attempt to investigate further the issues pertaining to cerebral organization for visual language processing in the stuttering population. Employing a lexical decision task, vocal reaction times were obtained for a group of 14 stutterers to unilateral, tachistoscopically presented concrete and abstract words. Results of an analysis of variance showed that a significant interaction occurred between visual fields and stimuli. Posthoc tests showed that the right hemisphere was superior for analyzing the concrete words while the left hemisphere was responsible for processing the abstract items. Compared to past data from normal subjects, these findings were interpreted as suggesting that some form of linguistic competition may exist between the two hemispheres, possibly reflecting a disturbance in functional localization in the stuttering population.


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