Srpski arhiv za celokupno lekarstvo 2016 Volume 144, Issue 5-6, Pages: 339-344
https://doi.org/10.2298/SARH1606339M
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Cited by
Laterality in living beings, hand dominance, and cerebral lateralization
Milenković Sanja (School of Medicine, Institute for Hygiene with Medical Ecology, Belgrade)
Paunović Katarina (School of Medicine, Institute for Hygiene with Medical Ecology, Belgrade)
Kocijančić Dušica (Clinical Center of Serbia, Clinic for Gynecology and Obstetrics, Belgrade)
To date, lateralization in living beings is a phenomenon almost
mythologically unexplored. Scientists have proved that lateralization is not
exclusively a human feature. Investigations in molecular biology, protein
structure, mobility of bacteria, and intracellular lateralization in
ciliates, shows important and universal nature of lateralization in living
systems. Dominant lateralization implies the appearance of a dominant
extremity, or a dominant sense during the performance of complex psychomotor
activities. Hand dominance is usually defined as a tendency to use one hand
rather than another to perform most activities and this is considered to be
the most obvious example of cerebral lateralization and exclusive
characteristic of humans. However, there are some exceptions in other
species. The dominant hand is able to perform more complex and subtle manual
tasks than the non-dominant hand, and this behavioral superiority is the
absolute result of additional cerebral support. The asymmetry of brain
organization was confirmed in rats, chimpanzees, dogs and birds, some fishes
and lizards. The relationships between hand dominance with brain structure
and function remain far from clear. For a long time, lateralization was
considered unique to humans, but recently it has become clear that
lateralization is a fundamental characteristic of the organization of brain
and behavior in all vertebrates. It has been questioned to what extent
lateralization in humans and other vertebrates may be comparable.
Keywords: laterality, handedness, cerebral dominance
Projekat
Ministarstva nauke Republike Srbije, br. 41020 i br. 175078