Deficiency of the transcription factor Cited2 in mice results in cardiac malformation, adrenal agenesis, neural tube, placental defects and partially penetrant cardiopulmonary laterality defects resulting from an abnormal Nodal->Pitx2c pathway. Here we show that a maternal high-fat diet more than doubles the penetrance of laterality defects and, surprisingly, induces palatal clefting in Cited2-...

Hemispheric asymmetries during auditory sensory processing were examined using whole-head magnetoencephalographic recordings of auditory evoked responses to monaurally and binaurally presented amplitude-modulated sounds. Laterality indices were calculated for the transient onset responses (P1m and N1m), the transient gamma-band response, the sustained field (SF) and the 40 Hz auditory steady-st...

The formation of a perfect vertebrate body plan poses many questions that thrill developmental biologists. Special attention has been given to the symmetric segmental patterning that allows the formation of the vertebrae and skeletal muscles. These segmented structures derive from bilaterally symmetric units called somites, which are formed under the control of a segmentation clock. At the same...

Tests of postural rotational laterality were carried out in 63 patients suffering from torticollis (53) or torsion dystonia with torticollis (10) and in 33 normal subjects. There was a correlation between the predominant direction of postural functions and the direction of the rotatory component of torticollis. Torticollis and torsion dystonia may be due to the release of a postural rotational ...

The hypnosis community may be buying into a neuroscience fad concerning brain laterality. Accustomed to deflating folkloric claims about hypnosis, researchers and practitioners of hypnosis have come to appreciate the danger of lingering myths and the importance of dispelling legends. Tales are ubiquitous, however, and claims relating to the left or right hemispheres require both context and sub...

An acoustic pointing task was used to determine whether interaural temporal disparities (ITDs) conveyed by high-frequency "transposed" stimuli would produce larger extents of laterality than ITDs conveyed by bands of high-frequency Gaussian noise. The envelopes of transposed stimuli are designed to provide high-frequency channels with information similar to that conveyed by the waveforms of low...

We describe the first brain event-related potential (ERP) study of cognitive processes in the chimpanzee. In an extension of our studies on the ontogeny of vocal perception, ERP measures were obtained during the presentation of simple nonsignal stimuli as well as conspecific and human vocalizations. We initially confirmed findings from humans and monkeys of the appearance of a long-latency posi...

Commonly displayed functional asymmetries such as hand dominance and hemispheric speech lateralisation are well researched in adults. However there is debate about when such functions become lateralised in the typically developing brain. This study examined whether patterns of speech laterality and hand dominance were related and whether they varied with age in typically developing children. 14...