Key Points
-
Brain asymmetry has been observed in humans and other animals in terms of structure, function and behaviour. This lateralization is thought to reflect evolutionary, developmental, hereditary, experiential and pathological factors.
-
Language and handedness are well-known behaviours that provide clues to the structural and functional lateralization of the human brain. Language production and some aspects of syntactic processing are localized primarily to areas of the anterior left hemisphere, including Broca's area, whereas language comprehension is confined primarily to the left posterior temporal–parietal region, including Wernicke's area. Hand preference correlates strongly with structural and functional asymmetries in language-processing structures, such as the planum temporale.
-
Among the most prominent observations of anatomical brain asymmetry are the right frontal and left occipital petalia-impressions on the inner surface of the skull that reflect protrusions of the right frontal pole and left occipital pole beyond their counterparts in the opposite hemisphere. A twisting effect is also seen, known as Yakovlevian anticlockwise torque, in which structures surrounding the right Sylvian fissure are 'torqued forward' relative to those on the left.
-
The asymmetrical trajectory of the Sylvian fissure was one of the first anatomical asymmetries to be described. The height of the end-point of the Sylvian fissure is negatively correlated with the volume of the planum temporale, an extension of Wernicke's posterior receptive language area. In humans, the left planum temporale is up to ten times larger than the right. Broca's speech area is also larger in volume than its homologue in the right hemisphere. Heschl's gyrus, which corresponds to the primary auditory cortex, is larger on the left side. By contrast, the central sulcus, which houses the primary motor cortex, is reported to be deeper and larger in the right hemisphere.
-
Advances in brain-mapping methods have enabled us to detect and visualize patterns of asymmetry in whole populations. These approaches have led to a more detailed description of the anatomical organization of the brain, allowing us to identify subtle variations in asymmetry that occur during development,with age and in disease. Among the diseases that have been associated with aberrant brain asymmetries are Alzheimer's disease, in which left-hemisphere regions are affected earlier and more severely, and developmental dyslexia, in which reduced or reversed asymmetry of the planum temporale has been reported. Male–female differences in brain asymmetry have also been detected,with some evidence to suggest that the male brain is more lateralized than that of the female.
-
The degree to which functional asymmetries parallel those observed anatomically has been investigated using a variety of methods, including positron emission tomography and functional magnetic resonance imaging. These studies have provided further insights into brain asymmetry, describing features of left-hemisphere language localization and right-hemisphere dominance for certain visuospatial tasks.
-
Studies of the cellular and molecular mechanisms that underpin the formation of brain asymmetries are in their infancy. Future investigations will be led by a detailed knowledge of how the brain deviates from symmetry both in healthy individuals and in disease. Brain-mapping approaches show great promise for assessing factors that modulate the lateralization of the brain, including the ontogeny, phylogeny and genetic determinants of brain asymmetry.
Abstract
Brain asymmetry has been observed in animals and humans in terms of structure, function and behaviour. This lateralization is thought to reflect evolutionary, hereditary, developmental, experiential and pathological factors. Here, we review the diverse literature describing brain asymmetries, focusing primarily on anatomical differences between the hemispheres and the methods that have been used to detect them. Brain-mapping approaches, in particular, can identify and visualize patterns of asymmetry in whole populations, including subtle alterations that occur in disease, with age and during development. These and other tools show great promise for assessing factors that modulate cognitive specialization in the brain, including the ontogeny, phylogeny and genetic determinants of brain asymmetry.
This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution
Access options
Subscribe to this journal
Receive 12 print issues and online access
$189.00 per year
only $15.75 per issue
Buy this article
- Purchase on Springer Link
- Instant access to full article PDF
Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Geschwind, N. & Galaburda, A. M. Cerebral lateralization. Biological mechanisms, associations and pathology. Arch. Neurol. 42, 428–459 (1985).
Kimura, D. The asymmetry of the human brain. Sci. Am. 228, 70–78 (1973).
Broca, P. Remarques sur le siège de la faculté du langage articulé, suivies d'une observation d'aphémie (perte de la parole). Bull. Soc. Anthropol. 6, 330–357 (1861).
Wernicke, C. Der aphasische Symptomenkomplex: eine psychologische Studie auf anatomischer Basis (Cohn und Welgert, Breslau, 1874).
Dapretto, M. & Bookheimer, S. Y. Form and content: dissociating syntax and semantics in sentence comprehension. Neuron 24, 427–432 (1999).
Binder, J. The new neuroanatomy of speech perception. Brain 123, 2371–2372 (2000).
Price, C. J. The anatomy of language: contributions from functional neuroimaging. J. Anat. 197, 335–359 (2000).
Zatorre, R. J. On the representation of multiple languages in the brain: old problems and new directions. Brain Lang. 36, 127–147 (1989).
Pouratian, N., Bookheimer, S. Y., Rex, D. E., Martin, N. A. & Toga, A. W. Utility of preoperative functional magnetic resonance imaging for identifying language cortices in patients with vascular malformations. J. Neurosurg. 97, 21–32 (2002).
Geschwind, N. & Levitsky, W. Human brain: left–right asymmetries in temporal speech region. Science 161, 186–187 (1968). This seminal report observed anatomical asymmetries in perisylvian brain structures that are involved in language. It ignited the interest in anatomical asymmetry, using post-mortem and imaging methods.
Annett, M. Left, Right, Hand and Brain: the Right Shift Theory (Lawrence Erlbaum, London, 1985).
Beaton, A. A. The relation of planum temporale asymmetry and morphology of the corpus callosum to handedness, gender and dyslexia: a review of the evidence. Brain Lang. 60, 255–322 (1997).
Zilles, K. et al. Structural asymmetries in the human forebrain and the forebrain of non-human primates and rats. Neurosci. Biobehav. Rev. 20, 593–605 (1996).
Witelson, S. F. & Kigar, D. L. Sylvian fissure morphology and asymmetry in men and women: bilateral differences in relation to handedness in men. J. Comp Neurol. 323, 326–340 (1992).
Coren, S. The Left-Hander Syndrome: the Causes and Consequences of Left-Handedness (Free Press, New York, 1992).
Desmond, J. E. et al. Functional MRI measurement of language lateralization in Wada-tested patients. Brain 118, 1411–1419 (1995).
Koff, E., Naeser, M. A., Pieniadz, J. M., Foundas, A. L. & Levine, H. L. Computed tomographic scan hemispheric asymmetries in right- and left-handed male and female subjects. Arch. Neurol. 43, 487–491 (1986).
Davidson, R. J. & Hugdahl, K. (eds) Brain Asymmetry (MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1995).
Hellige, J. B. Hemispheric Asymmetry: What's Right and What's Left (Harvard Univ. Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 2001). This book provides an overview of hemispheric asymmetry. Surveying extensive data in the cognitive sciences, it explores whether hemispheric asymmetry is unique to humans, and discusses models of brain lateralization and how it might have evolved.
Annett, M. Genetic and nongenetic influences on handedness. Behav. Genet. 8, 227–249 (1978).
McManus, I. C. & Bryden, M. P. in Handbook of Neuropsychology Vol. 6 (eds Rapin, I. & Segalowitz, S. J.) 115–144 (Elsevier Science, Amsterdam, 1992).
Grimshaw, G. M., Bryden, M. P. & Finegan, J. K. Relations between prenatal testosterone and cerebral lateralization in children. Neuropsychology 9, 68–70 (1995).
Glick, S. D., Ross, D. A. & Hough, L. B. Lateral asymmetry of neurotransmitters in human brain. Brain Res. 234, 53–63 (1982).
Eberstaller, O. Zür Oberflachen Anatomie der Grosshirn Hemisphaeren. Wien. Med. 7, 479, 642, 644 (1884).
LeMay, M. Morphological cerebral asymmetries of modern man, fossil man, and nonhuman primate. Ann. NY Acad. Sci. 280, 349–366 (1976).
LeMay, M. & Kido, D. K. Asymmetries of the cerebral hemispheres on computed tomograms. J. Comput. Assist. Tomogr. 2, 471–476 (1978).
Kertesz, A., Black, S. E., Polk, M. & Howell, J. Cerebral asymmetries on magnetic resonance imaging. Cortex 22, 117–127 (1986).
Cunningham, D. J. Contribution to the surface anatomy of the cerebral hemispheres. Cunningham Mem. (R. Ir. Acad.) 7, 372(1892).
Fleschig, P. Bemerkungen über die Hörsphare des menschlichen Gehirns. Neurol. Zent. Bl. 27, 2–7 (1908).
Habib, M., Robichon, F., Levrier, O., Khalil, R. & Salamon, G. Diverging asymmetries of temporo-parietal cortical areas: a reappraisal of Geschwind/Galaburda theory. Brain Lang. 48, 238–258 (1995).
Steinmetz, H., Structure, functional and cerebral asymmetry: in vivo morphometry of the planum temporale. Neurosci. Biobehav. Rev. 20, 587–591 (1996).
Kulynych, J., Vladar, K., Jones, D. & Weinberger, D. A 3D surface rendering in MRI morphometry: a study of the planum temporale. J. Comput. Assist. Tomogr. 17, 529–535 (1993).
Narr, K. L. et al. 3D mapping of gyral shape and cortical surface asymmetries in schizophrenia: gender effects. Am. J. Psychiatry 158, 244–255 (2001).
Yeni-Komshian, G. H. & Benson, D. A. Anatomical study of cerebral asymmetry in humans, chimpanzees and rhesus monkeys. Science 192, 387–389 (1976).
Falzi, G., Perrone, P. & Vignolo, L. Right–left asymmetry in anterior speech region. Arch. Neurol. 39, 239–240 (1982).
Amunts, K. et al. Broca's region revisited: cytoarchitecture and intersubject variability. J. Comp. Neurol. 412, 319–341 (1999).
Hochberg, F. & LeMay, M. Arteriographic correlates of handedness. Neurology 25, 218–222 (1975).
Rademacher, J., Caviness, V. S. Jr, Steinmetz, H. & Galaburda, A. M. Topographical variation of the human primary cortices: implications for neuroimaging, brain mapping and neurobiology. Cereb. Cortex 3, 313–329 (1993).
Penhune, V. B., Zatorre, R. J., MacDonald, J. D. & Evans, A. C. Interhemispheric anatomical differences in human primary auditory cortex: probabilistic mapping and volume measurement from magnetic resonance scans. . Cereb. Cortex 6, 661–672 (1996).
Galaburda, A. M. & Geschwind, N. Anatomical asymmetries in the adult and developing brain and their implications for function. Adv. Pediatr. 28, 271–292 (1981).
Geschwind, N. & Galaburda, A. M. Cerebral Lateralization: (MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1987).
Sowell, E. R. et al. Mapping sulcal pattern asymmetry and local cortical surface gray matter distribution in vivo: maturation in perisylvian cortices. Cereb. Cortex 12, 17–26 (2002).
Thompson, P. M. et al. Growth patterns in the developing brain detected by using continuum-mechanical tensor maps. Nature 404, 190–193 (2000).
Highley, J. R., Walker, M. A., Esiri, M. M., Crow, T. J. & Harrison, P. J. Asymmetry of the uncinate fasciculus: a post-mortem study of normal subjects and patients with schizophrenia. Cereb. Cortex 12, 1218–1224 (2002).
Davatzikos, C. & Bryan, R. N. Morphometric analysis of cortical sulci using parametric ribbons: a study of the central sulcus. J. Comput. Assist. Tomogr. 26, 298–307 (2002).
Amunts, K. et al. Asymmetry in the human motor cortex and handedness. Neuroimage 4, 216–222 (1996).
Yakovlev, P. I. & Rakic, P. Patterns of decussation of bulbar pyramids and distribution of pyramidal tracts on two sides of the spinal cord. Trans. Am. Neurol. Assoc. 91, 366–367 (1966).
Nudo, R. J., Jenkins, W. M., Merzenich, M. M., Prejean, T. & Grenda, R. Neurophysiological correlates of hand preference in primary motor cortex of adult squirrel monkeys. J. Neurosci. 12, 2918–2947 (1992).
Steinmetz, H., Furst, G. & Freund, H. J. Variation of perisylvian and calcarine anatomic landmarks within stereotaxic proportional coordinates. Am. J. Neuroradiol. 11, 1123–1130 (1990).
Thompson, P. M. et al. Cortical variability and asymmetry in normal aging and Alzheimer's disease. Cereb. Cortex 8, 492–509 (1998).
Thompson, P. M., Mega, M. S., Vidal, C., Rapoport, J. L. & Toga, A. W. Detecting disease-specific patterns of brain structure using cortical pattern matching and a population-based probabilistic brain atlas. Proc. IEEE Conf. Inf. Process. Med. Imaging (IPMI) (Univ. California, Davis, 2001).
Westbury, C. F., Zatorre, R. J. & Evans, A. C. Quantifying variability in the planum temporale: a probability map. Cereb. Cortex 9, 392–405 (1999).
Paus, T. et al. Human cingulate and paracingulate sulci: pattern, variability, asymmetry, and probabilistic map. Cereb. Cortex 6, 207–214 (1996).
Crosson, B. et al. Activity in the paracingulate and cingulate sulci during word generation: an fMRI study of functional anatomy. Cereb. Cortex 9, 307–316 (1999).
Good, C. D. et al. A voxel-based morphometric study of ageing in 465 normal adult human brains. Neuroimage 14, 21–36 (2001).
Watkins, K. E. et al. Structural asymmetries in the human brain: a voxel-based statistical analysis of 142 MRI scans. Cereb. Cortex 11, 868–877 (2001).
Hiscock, M., Inch, R., Jacek, C., Hiscock-Kalil, C. & Kalil, K. M. Is there a sex difference in human laterality? I. An exhaustive survey of auditory laterality studies from six neuropsychology journals. J. Clin. Exp. Neuropsychol. 16, 423–435 (1994).
Mazziotta, J. C. et al. A probabilistic atlas and reference system for the human brain. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. Lond. B 356, 1293–1322 (2001). This paper describes the efforts of an international consortium to build an image database of the human brain that encodes statistical information on anatomical and functional variation. The resulting reference system stores brain maps from multiple imaging devices, and can be used to assess group differences in brain structure and function, as well as hemispheric asymmetries in these measures.
Thompson, P. M. & Toga, A. W. A framework for computational anatomy. Comput. Vis. Sci. 5, 1–12 (2002).
Shenton, M. E. et al. Application of automated MRI volumetric measurement techniques to the ventricular system in schizophrenics and normal controls. Schizophr. Res. 5, 103–113 (1991).
Chi, G. J., Doaling, E. G. & Gilles, F. H. Left–right asymmetries of the temporal speech areas of the human fetus. Arch. Neurol. 34, 346–348 (1977).
Previc, F. H. A general theory concerning the prenatal origins of cerebral lateralization in humans. Psychol. Rev. 98, 299–334 (1991).
Kieler, H., Cnattingius, S., Haglund, B., Palmgren, J. & Axelsson, O. Sinistrality — a side-effect of prenatal sonography: a comparative study of young men. Epidemiology 12, 618–623 (2001).
Schlaug, G., Jäncke, L., Huang, Y., Staiger, J. F. & Steinmetz, H. Increased corpus callosum size in musicians. Neuropsychologia 33, 1047–1055 (1995).
Keenan, J. P., Thangaraj, V., Halpern, A. R. & Schlaug, G. Absolute pitch and planum temporale. Neuroimage 14, 1402–1408 (2001).
Thompson, P. M. et al. Genetic influences on brain structure. Nature Neurosci. 4, 1253–1258 (2001). This paper was the first to create maps of genetic influences on human brain structure. It showed that the amount of grey matter in the frontal cortex was highly heritable and correlated with IQ. It discusses hemispheric asymmetries in these heritability patterns.
Posthuma, D. et al. The association between brain volume and intelligence is of genetic origin. Nature Neurosci. 5, 83–84 (2002).
Lohmann, G., von Cramon, D. Y. & Steinmetz, H. Sulcal variability of twins. Cereb. Cortex 9, 754–763 (1999).
Thompson, P. M. et al. Detecting dynamic and genetic effects on brain structure using high-dimensional cortical pattern matching. Proc. Int. Symp. Biomed. Imaging (ISBI2002) (Washington DC, 2002).
Plomin, R. & Kosslyn, S. M. Genes, brain and cognition. Nature Neurosci. 4, 1153–1154 (2001).
Steinmetz, H., Herzog, A., Huang, Y. & Hacklander, T. Discordant brain-surface anatomy in monozygotic twins. N. Engl. J. Med. 331, 951–952 (1994).
Geschwind, D. H., Miller, B. L., DeCarli, C. & Carmelli, D. Heritability of lobar brain volumes in twins supports genetic models of cerebral laterality and handedness. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 99, 3176–3181 (2002).
Satz, P., Orsini, D. L., Saslow, E. & Henry, R. The pathological left-handedness syndrome. Brain Cogn. 4, 27–46 (1985).
Corballis, M. C. & Morgan, M. J. On the biological basis of human laterality: I. Evidence for a maturational left–right gradient. Behav. Brain Sci. 2, 261–336 (1978).
Geschwind, N. & Behan, P. Left-handedness: association with immune disease, migraine, and developmental learning disorder. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 79, 5097–6100 (1982).
Laland, K. N., Kumm, J., Van Horn, J. D. & Feldman, M. W. A gene-culture model of human handedness. Behav. Genet. 25, 433–445 (1995).
Shaywitz, B. A. et al. Sex differences in the functional organization of the brain for language. Nature 373, 607–609 (1995).
Lake, D. A. & Bryden, M. P. Handedness and sex differences in hemispheric asymmetry. Brain Lang. 3, 266–282 (1976).
Weekes, N. Y., Zaidel, D. W. & Zaidel, E. The effects of sex and sex role attribution on the right ear advantage in dichotic listening. Neuropsychology 9, 62–67 (1976).
Kimura, D. Sex and Cognition (MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 2000). This book provides an overview of studies that assess sex differences in brain structure and function.
Jäncke, L., Schlaug, G., Huang, Y. & Steinmetz, H. Asymmetry of the planum parietale. Neuroreport 5, 1161–1163 (1994).
Diamond, M. C., Johnson, R. E. & Ingham, C. A. Morphological changes in the young, adult and aging rate cerebral cortex, hippocampus, and diencephalon. Behav. Biol. 14, 163–174 (1975).
Fleming, D. E., Anderson, R. H., Rhees, R. W., Kinghorn, E. & Bakaitis, J. Effects of prenatal stress on sexually dimorphic asymmetries in the cerebral cortex of the male rat. Brain Res. Bull. 16, 395–398 (1986).
Witelson, S. F. Neural sexual mosaicism: sexual differentiation of the human temporo-parietal region for functional asymmetry. Psychoneuroendocrinology 16, 131–153 (1991).
Diamond, M. C. Hormonal effects on the development of cerebral lateralization. Psychoneuroendocrinology 16, 121–129 (1991).
Taylor, D. C. Different rates of cerebral maturation between sexes and between hemispheres. Lancet 2, 140–142 (1969).
Benbow, C. P. & Stanley, J. C. Sex differences in mathematical reasoning ability: more facts. Science 222, 1029–1031 (1983).
Oldfield, R. C. The assessment and analysis of handedness: the Edinburgh inventory. Neuropsychologia 9, 97–113 (1971).
Gorski, R. A., Harlan, R. E., Jacobson, C. D., Shryne, J. E. & Southam, A. M. Evidence for the existence of a sexually dimorphic nucleus in the preoptic area of the rat. J. Comp. Neurol. 193, 529–539 (1980).
Arnold, A. P. Sexual differentiation of the zebra finch song system: positive evidence, negative evidence, null hypotheses, and a paradigm shift. J. Neurobiol. 33, 572–584 (1997).
Diaz, E., Pinto-Hamuy, T. & Fernandez, V. Interhemispheric structural asymmetry induced by a lateralized reaching task in the rat motor cortex. Eur. J. Neurosci. 6, 1235–1238 (1994).
Barneoud, P. & Van der Loos, H. Direction of handedness linked to hereditary asymmetry of a sensory system. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 90, 3246–3250 (1993).
Hynd, G. W., Semrud-Clikeman, M., Lorys, A. R., Novey, E. S. & Eliopulos, D. Brain morphology in developmental dyslexia and attention deficit–hyperactivity disorder (ADHD): morphometric analysis of MRI. Arch. Neurol. 47, 919–926 (1990).
Larsen, J. P., Hoien, T., Lundberg, I. & Odegaard, H. MRI evaluation of the size and symmetry of the planum temporale in adolescents with developmental dyslexia. Brain Lang. 39, 289–301 (1990).
Galaburda, A. M. in Brain Asymmetry (eds Davidson, R. J. & Hugdahl, K.) 51–73 (MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1995).
Barinaga, M. Brain researchers speak a common language. Science 270, 1437–1438 (1995).
Crow, T. J. et al. Schizophrenia as an anomaly of development of cerebral asymmetry. Arch. Gen. Psychiatry 46, 1145–1150 (1989). This paper describes a theory that suggests that the symptoms of people with schizophrenia might result, in part, from disturbances of cerebral lateralization.
Bilder, R. M. et al. Cerebral volume asymmetries in schizophrenia and mood disorders: a quantitative magnetic resonance imaging study. Int. J. Psychophysiol. 34, 197–205 (1999).
Lennox, B. R., Park, S. B., Jones, P. B., Morris, P. G. & Park, G. Spatial and temporal mapping of neural activity associated with auditory hallucinations. Lancet 353, 644 (1999).
Risberg, J., Halsey, J. H., Wills, E. L. & Wilson, E. M. Hemispheric specialization in normal man studied by bilateral measurements of the regional cerebral blood flow. A study with the 133-Xe inhalation technique. Brain 98, 511–524 (1975).
Gerendai, I. in Cerebral Dominance: the Biological Foundations (eds Geschwind, N. & Galaburda, A. M.) 167–178 (Harvard Univ. Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1984).
Thompson, P. M. et al. Cortical change in Alzheimer's disease detected with a disease-specific population-based brain atlas. Cereb. Cortex 11, 1–16 (2001).
Thompson, P. M. et al. Dynamics of gray matter loss in Alzheimer's disease. J. Neurosci. (in the press).
Wahlund, L. O. et al. Cognitive functions and brain structures: a quantitative study of CSF volumes on Alzheimer patients and healthy control subjects. Magn. Reson. Imaging 11, 169–174 (1993).
Loewenstein, D. A. et al. Predominant left hemisphere metabolic dysfunction in dementia. Arch. Neurol. 46, 146–152 (1989).
Penfield, W. & Jasper, H. Epilepsy and the Functional Anatomy of the Human Brain (Little, Brown & Co., Boston, 1954).
Penfold, W. The electrode, the brain and the mind. Z. Neurol. 201, 297–307 (1972).
Ojemann, J. G., Ojemann, G. A. & Lettich, E. Cortical stimulation mapping of language cortex by using a verb generation task: effects of learning and comparison to mapping based on object naming. J. Neurosurg. 97, 33–38 (2002).
Wada, J. A., Clarke, R. J. & Hamm, A. E. Control speech zones in 100 adult and 100 infant brains. Arch. Neurol. 32, 239–246 (1975). This paper describes the sodium amytal test (also known as the Wada test), which determines cerebral dominance in surgical patients by using selective anaesthesia of one brain hemisphere.
Zatorre, R. J. Perceptual asymmetry on the dichotic fused words test and cerebral speech lateralization determined by the carotid sodium amytal test. Neuropsychologia 27, 1207–1219 (1989).
Gordon, H. W. & Bogen, J. E. Hemispheric lateralization of singing after intracarotid sodium amylobarbitone. J. Neurol. Neurosurg. Psychiatry 37, 727–738 (1974).
Foundas, A. L., Leonard, C. M. & Heilman, K. M. Morphologic cerebral asymmetries and handedness. The pars triangularis and planum temporale. Arch. Neurol. 52, 1137–1138 (1995).
Sperry, R. Consciousness, personal identity and the divided brain. Neuropsychologia 22, 661–673 (1984).
Bogen, J. E., Fisher, E. D. & Vogel, P. J. Cerebral commissurotomy: a second case report. J. Am. Med. Assoc. 194, 1328–1329 (1965).
Gazzaniga, M. S. et al. Collaboration between the hemispheres of a callosotomy patient. Emerging right hemisphere speech and the left hemisphere interpreter. Brain 119, 1255–1262 (1996).
Zaidel, E. & Iacoboni, M. The Parallel Brain: the Cognitive Neuroscience of the Corpus Callosum (MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 2002).
Deutsch, D. Dichotic listening to melodic patterns and its relation to hemispheric specialization of functions. Music Percept. 3, 127–154 (1985).
Jäncke, L., Steinmetz, H. & Volkmann, J. Dichotic listening: what does it measure? Neuropsychologia 30, 941–950 (1992).
Kimura, D. Cerebral dominance and the perception of verbal stimuli. Can. J. Psychol. 15, 156–165 (1961).
Friston, K. J. et al. Statistical parametric maps in functional imaging: a general linear approach. Hum. Brain Mapp. 2, 189–210 (1995).
Tzourio, N., Nkanga-Ngila, B. & Mazoyer, B. Left planum temporale surface correlates with functional dominance during story listening. Neuroreport 9, 829–833 (1998).
Tzourio, N., Crivello, F., Mellet, E., Nkanga-Ngila, B. & Mazoyer, B. Functional anatomy of dominance for speech comprehension in left handers vs right handers. Neuroimage 8, 1–16 (1998).
Karbe, H. et al. Planum temporale and Brodmann's area 22. Magnetic resonance imaging and high-resolution positron emission tomography demonstrate functional left–right asymmetry. Arch. Neurol. 52, 869–874 (1995).
Shepard, R. N. & Metzler, J. Mental rotation of three-dimensional objects. Science 171, 701–703 (1971).
Corballis, M. C. & Sergent, J. Imagery in a commissurotomized patient. Neuropsychologia 26, 13–26 (1988).
Ditunno, P. L. & Mann, V. A. Right hemisphere specialization for mental rotation in normals and brain damaged subjects. Cortex 26, 177–188 (1990).
Cohen, M. S. et al. Changes in cortical activity during mental rotation. A mapping study using functional MRI. Brain 119, 89–100 (1996).
Richter, W., Ugurbil, K., Georgopoulos, A. & Kim, S. G. Time-resolved fMRI of mental rotation. Neuroreport 8, 3697–3702 (1997).
Hugdahl, K. Lateralization of cognitive processes in the brain. Acta Psychol. 105, 211–235 (2000).
Geschwind, D. H. & Miller, B. L. Molecular approaches to cerebral laterality: development and neurodegeneration. Am. J. Med. Genet. 101, 370–381 (2001). This paper reviews molecular biological techniques to investigate the genetic and epigenetic mechanisms that underlie brain asymmetry.
Tucker, D. M. & Williamson, P. A. Asymmetric neural control systems in human self-regulation. Psychol. Rev. 91, 185–215 (1984).
Wagner, H. N. Jr et al. Imaging dopamine receptors in the human brain by positron emission tomography. Science 221, 1264–1266 (1983).
Oke, A., Keller, R., Mefford, I. & Adams, R. N. Lateralization of norepinephrine in human thalamus. Science 200, 1411–1413 (1978).
Galaburda, A. et al. Left–right asymmetries in the brain. Science 199, 852–856 (1978).
Eidelberg, D. & Galaburda, A. M. Symmetry and asymmetry in the human posterior thalamus: I. Cytoarchitectonic analysis in normal persons. Arch. Neurol. 39, 325–332 (1982).
Rosen, G. D. Cellular, morphometric, ontogenetic and connectional substrates of anatomical asymmetry. Neurosci. Biobehav. Rev. 20, 607–615 (1996). In this paper, the developmental processes that result in anatomical asymmetries are assessed labelling migrating cells during cortical neurogenesis.
Scheibel, A. B. et al. Dendritic organization of the anterior speech area. Exp. Neurol. 87, 109–117 (1985).
Stromswold, K. in The Cognitive Neurosciences (ed. Gazzaniga, M. S.) 855–870 (MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1995).
Glick, S. D. & Hinds, P. A. Differences in amphetamine and morphine sensitivity in lateralized and non-lateralized rats: locomotor activity and drug self-administration. Eur. J. Pharmacol. 118, 239–244 (1985).
Nottebohm, F. Neural lateralization of vocal control in a passerine bird. I. Song. J. Exp. Zool. 177, 229–261 (1971).
Petersen, M. R., Beecher, M. D., Zoloth, S. R., Moody, D. B. & Stebbins, W. C. Neural lateralization of species-specific vocalizations by Japanese macaques (Macaca fuscata). Science 202, 324–327 (1978).
Witelson, S. F. The brain connection: the corpus callosum is larger in left-handers. Science 229, 665–668 (1985).
Hardyck, C., Petrinovich, L. F. & Goldman, R. D. Left-handedness and cognitive deficit. Cortex 12, 266–279 (1976).
Aboitiz, F. & Garcia, R. The anatomy of language revisited. Biol. Res. 30, 171–183 (1997).
Cantalupo, C. & Hopkins, W. D. Asymmetric Broca's area in great apes. Nature 414, 505 (2001).
Lieberman, P. The Biology and Evolution of Language (Harvard Univ. Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1984).
Goldin-Meadow, S. & McNeill, D. in The Descent of Mind: Psychological Perspectives on Hominid Evolution (eds Corballis, M. C. & Lea, S.) (Oxford Univ. Press, New York, 1999).
Kegl, J. & McWhortner, J. Perspectives on an emerging language. Proc. Stanford Child Lang. Res. Form (ed. Clark, E.) 15–36 (Center for the Study of Language and Information, Palo Alto, California, 1997).
Emmorey, K. et al. Neural systems underlying spatial language in American sign language. Neuroimage 17, 812–824 (2002).
Corballis, M. C. The gestural origins of language. Am. Sci. 87, 138–145 (1999).
Acknowledgements
Grant support was provided by a P41 Resource Grant from the National Center for Research Resources. Further support for algorithm development was provided by the National Library of Medicine, the National Institute of Mental Health, and by a Human Brain Project grant to the International Consortium for Brain Mapping, funded jointly by the National Institute of Mental Health and the National Institute on Drug Abuse.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Related links
Related links
DATABASES
OMIM
FURTHER INFORMATION
Encyclopedia of Life Sciences
MIT Encyclopedia of Cognitive Sciences
Glossary
- PLANUM TEMPORALE
-
An auditory processing structure that is located in the posterior temporal lobe.
- BRODMANN AREA
-
(BA). Korbinian Brodmann (1868–1918) was an anatomist who divided the cerebral cortex into numbered subdivisions on the basis of cell arrangements, types and staining properties (for example, the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex contains subdivisions, including BA 46, BA 9 and others). Modern derivatives of his maps are commonly used as the reference system for analysis of brain-imaging findings.
- ASSOCIATION CORTICES
-
The neocortical regions that are not involved in primary sensory or motor processing. They include frontal areas subserving executive functions and temporoparietal areas supporting visuo-spatial processing.
- PETALIA
-
Impressions left on the inner surface of the skull by protrusions of one hemisphere relative to the other. In humans, for example, the right frontal lobe often extends beyond the left anteriorly, and the left occipital lobe beyond the right posteriorly. These asymmetries can be detected in endocasts of fossilized cranial bones.
- YAKOVLEVIAN ANTICLOCKWISE TORQUE
-
A double asymmetry of the normal human brain in which the right frontal lobe extends across the midline, over the left, and the left occipital lobe protrudes over the right. The brain thus has the appearance of having been exposed to an anticlockwise twisting force, or torque.
- HESCHL'S GYRUS
-
A division of the superior temporal gyrus that corresponds to the primary auditory cortex.
- TENSOR MAP
-
A map illustrating the principal directions of some multidimensional quantity at each point in space, such as the preferred directions of anatomical variation in a population, or the principal directions of water diffusion in the brain (measured using diffusion tensor imaging).
- VOXEL
-
A volume element: the smallest distinguishable, box-shaped part of a three-dimensional space.
- PERFECT PITCH
-
The ability to identify any musical note without comparing it to a reference note.
- PLANUM PARIETALE
-
An asymmetrical cortical area in the inferior parietal lobule, buried deep in the posterior ascending ramus fo the Sylvian fissure. It is anatomicaly adjacent to the planum temporale, an asummetric auditory processing structure.
- WADA TEST
-
A test used in surgical patients to determine which brain hemisphere is dominant for language. Intracarotid injection of sodium amytal produces transient anaesthesia in the ipsilateral hemisphere as well as blockage of speech function if it is the dominant hemisphere.
- DICHOTIC LISTENING
-
A technique for studying brain asymmetry in auditory processing. The subject is presented simultaneously with different sounds to the right and left ears, and is later tested to determine which, if any, auditory stimulus was more accurately analysed.
- POLYMORPHISM
-
The simultaneous existence in the same population of two or more genotypes in frequencies that cannot be explained by recurrent mutations.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Toga, A., Thompson, P. Mapping brain asymmetry. Nat Rev Neurosci 4, 37–48 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrn1009
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nrn1009
This article is cited by
-
Variability in Hemispheric Functional Segregation Phenotypes: A Review and General Mechanistic Model
Neuropsychology Review (2024)
-
Altered functional connectivity of the thalamus and salience network in patients with cluster headache: a pilot study
Neurological Sciences (2024)
-
Using rare genetic mutations to revisit structural brain asymmetry
Nature Communications (2024)
-
Diagnostic challenge of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in a patient with multimorbidity: a case-report
BMC Neurology (2023)
-
Sex differences in fetal intracranial volumes assessed by in utero MR imaging
Biology of Sex Differences (2023)