The evolutionary origins of human right-handedness remain poorly understood. Some have hypothesized that tool use served as an important preadaptation for the eventual evolution of populationlevel right-handedness. In contrast, others have suggested that complex gestural and vocal communication served as prerequisite for the evolution of human right-handedness. In this study, we tested these co...

Motor system organization varies with handedness. However, previous work has focused almost exclusively on direction of handedness (right or left) as opposed to degree of handedness (strength). In the present study, we determined whether measures of interhemispheric interactions and degree of handedness are related to contra- and ipsilateral motor cortical representations. Participants complete...

Objectives: The present study aimed to investigate the possible effects of laterality and handedness on higher-order sensory functions and manual dexterity of the elderly. Methods: In this non-experimental cross-sectional study, 58 elderly people aged 60-75 years (35 right-handed) were recruited through a convenience sampling method. Laterality of the selected subjects was examined using the E...

1 Euan MacDonald Centre for Motor Neurone Disease Research, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK 2 Centre for Cognitive Ageing and Cognitive Epidemiology, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK 3 Human Cognitive Neuroscience, School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK 4 Centre for Clinical Brain Sciences, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, ...

45 Human hands are architecturally symmetrical, yet distinctly different in their functional abilities. This seemingly unique human tendency to use the right hand rather than the left for fine motor function is observed in ~90% of the human population. The remaining ~10% are atypical (i.e. left-handers). In addition to clearly visible hand dominance in humans, there are other behavioural latera...

1 Euan MacDonald Centre for Motor Neurone Disease Research, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK 2 Centre for Cognitive Ageing and Cognitive Epidemiology, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK 3 Human Cognitive Neuroscience, School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK 4 Centre for Clinical Brain Sciences, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, ...

the aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of handedness and two practice types (explicit vs. implicit) on motor sequence learning. 60 girls (age range of 14 – 17 years old) were randomly assigned to four groups according to their handedness: right–handed-explicit, right–handed–implicit, left–handed-explicit, and left–handed-implicit. participants’ task was accuracy and time of sequential...

It is widely know that the pattern of human handedness is such that approximately 90% of the population is right handed with the remainder being left handed, at least in the adult population. What is less well understood is how handedness develops and at what age adult-like handedness patterns emerge. Quantified in terms of both preference and performance, a plethora of different behavioral ass...

Within the evolutionary framework about the origin of human handedness and hemispheric specialization for language, the question of expression of population-level manual biases in nonhuman primates and their potential continuities with humans remains controversial. Nevertheless, there is a growing body of evidence showing consistent population-level handedness particularly for complex manual be...