Limb weakness in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is typically asymmetric. Previous studies have identified an effect of limb dominance on onset and spread of weakness, however relative atrophy of dominant and non-dominant brain regions has not been investigated. Our objective was to use voxel-based morphometry (VBM) to explore gray matter (GM) asymmetry in ALS, in the context of limb domina...

Background The present study aimed to determine and confront hand preference (hand chosen in priority to perform a manual dexterity task) and hand dominance (hand with best motor performance) in eight macaques (Macaca fascicularis) and in 20 human subjects (10 left-handers and 10 right-handers). Methods Four manual dexterity tests have been executed by the monkeys, over several weeks during lea...

BACKGROUND The decline of motor performance of the human hand-arm system with age is well-documented. While dominant hand performance is superior to that of the non-dominant hand in young individuals, little is known of possible age-related changes in hand dominance. We investigated age-related alterations of hand dominance in 20 to 90 year old subjects. All subjects were unambiguously right-ha...

Gender differences in brain activation during working memory tasks were examined with fMRI. Seventeen right-handed subjects (nine males, eight females) were studied with four different verbal working memory tasks of varying difficulty using whole brain echo-planar fMRI. Consistent with prior studies, we observed activation of the lateral prefrontal cortices (LPFC), the parietal cortices (PC), a...

The study examined the relationship between perinatal stress and decreased right handedness and decreased left cerebral dominance for speech with 215 children born prematurely, followed from birth, and tested at age 5. Results indicated that neither hand preference nor hand performance correlated with degree of perinatal stress and that eye preference was associated with perinatal stress though...

Using functional magnetic resonance imaging during word generation and spatial judgement (Landmark task), we investigated how hemispheric specializations for language and spatial processing interact in healthy individuals. We found individuals with atypical, right-hemispheric dominance for language to have more bilateral activation during spatial judgement than individuals with typical, disjunc...

The presence of a left dominant coronary artery system is associated with worse outcome after ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) compared with right dominance or a balanced coronary artery system. However, the association between coronary arterial dominance and left ventricular (LV) function at follow-up after STEMI is unclear. The present study aimed at evaluating the relation ...

Theoretical models of visual neglect and extinction entail claims about the normal functioning of attention and parietal cortex in the healthy brain: (1) 'pseudoneglect', a commonly observed attentional bias towards left space, reflects the greater dominance of parietal cortex activity of the right versus left hemisphere; (2) the capacity to distribute attention bilaterally depends causally on ...

Background and Objectives: Ocular dominance refers to the tendency to prefer visual input from one eye to the other and is found in majority of the individuals. The role of eye dominance as one of the confounding physiologic variables affecting the PRVEP (pattern reversal visual evoked potential) responses needs to be evaluated. Hence, the present study was planned to assess the influence of ey...

The ability to learn language is a human trait. In adults and children, brain imaging studies have shown that auditory language activates a bilateral frontotemporal network with a left hemispheric dominance. It is an open question whether these activations represent the complete neural basis for language present at birth. Here we demonstrate that in 2-d-old infants, the language-related neural ...