Psience Quest

Brain Science Is Ignoring Left-Handed People

Shayla Love

Quote:“It's been thought that it's just best to play it safe, be careful and exclude left-handers,” Bailey said. “That kind of mindset has become very deeply ingrained in cognitive neuroscience.”

When trying to figure out how the brain works, we need to account for all the ways a healthy brain can function, Karlsson said. Including left-handed people could actually help us learn more about the brain rather than mess up our efforts—like the ways the left and right side of the brain divide up the work, and the genetics that help to drive the brain’s asymmetries.

Left-handed people may not even have radically different brains for certain tasks. And there may be more variation in both left and right-handed people’s brains than we're aware of—the whole spectrum of lateral variation won't be revealed until we include lefties in brain research.

(2020-07-11, 09:39 PM)Sciborg_S_Patel Wrote: [ -> ]Brain Science Is Ignoring Left-Handed People

Shayla Love

As a lefty, hear hear lol

(2020-07-12, 09:35 PM)Obiwan Wrote: [ -> ]As a lefty, hear hear lol

Heh I was meant to be a lefty, but due to superstition I was forced to write with my right until it stuck.

I sometimes wonder what effect that has had on me mentally...

(2020-07-12, 10:28 PM)Sciborg_S_Patel Wrote: [ -> ]Heh I was meant to be a lefty, but due to superstition I was forced to write with my right until it stuck.

I sometimes wonder what effect that has had on me mentally...

Writing is one thing. But what about sports or using tools - are those independent?

I'm the son of a lefty!  (Always found my Mom's handwriting to be remarkably beautiful considering the challenge of cursive for the left-handed.)