The assessment and analysis of handedness: The Edinburgh inventory
TL;DR: An inventory of 20 items with a set of instructions and response- and computational-conventions is proposed and the results obtained from a young adult population numbering some 1100 individuals are reported.
Abstract: The need for a simply applied quantitative assessment of handedness is discussed and some previous forms reviewed An inventory of 20 items with a set of instructions and response- and computational-conventions is proposed and the results obtained from a young adult population numbering some 1100 individuals are reported The separate items are examined from the point of view of sex, cultural and socio-economic factors which might appertain to them and also of their inter-relationship to each other and to the measure computed from them all Criteria derived from these considerations are then applied to eliminate 10 of the original 20 items and the results recomputed to provide frequency-distribution and cumulative frequency functions and a revised item-analysis The difference of incidence of handedness between the sexes is discussed
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TL;DR: It is shown that aerobic exercise training increases the size of the anterior hippocampus, leading to improvements in spatial memory, and that increased hippocampal volume is associated with greater serum levels of BDNF, a mediator of neurogenesis in the dentate gyrus.
Abstract: The hippocampus shrinks in late adulthood, leading to impaired memory and increased risk for dementia. Hippocampal and medial temporal lobe volumes are larger in higher-fit adults, and physical activity training increases hippocampal perfusion, but the extent to which aerobic exercise training can modify hippocampal volume in late adulthood remains unknown. Here we show, in a randomized controlled trial with 120 older adults, that aerobic exercise training increases the size of the anterior hippocampus, leading to improvements in spatial memory. Exercise training increased hippocampal volume by 2%, effectively reversing age-related loss in volume by 1 to 2 y. We also demonstrate that increased hippocampal volume is associated with greater serum levels of BDNF, a mediator of neurogenesis in the dentate gyrus. Hippocampal volume declined in the control group, but higher preintervention fitness partially attenuated the decline, suggesting that fitness protects against volume loss. Caudate nucleus and thalamus volumes were unaffected by the intervention. These theoretically important findings indicate that aerobic exercise training is effective at reversing hippocampal volume loss in late adulthood, which is accompanied by improved memory function.
3,616 citations
Cites background from "The assessment and analysis of hand..."
...Eligible participants had to (i) demonstrate strong right handedness (35), (ii) be between the ages of 55 and 80 y, (iii) score ≥51 on the modified MiniMental Status Examination (36), (iv), score <3 on the Geriatric Depression Scale to rule out possible depression (37), (v) have normal color vision, (vi) have a corrected visual acuity of at least 20/40, (vii) have no history of neurological diseases or infarcts, including Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease, multiple sclerosis, or stroke, (viii) have no history of major vasculature problems, including cardiovascular disease or diabetes, (ix) obtain consent from their personal physician, and (x) sign an informed consent form approved by the University of Illinois....
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TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present longitudinal measures of five-year change in the regional brain volumes in healthy adults and assess the average and individual differences in volume changes and the effects of age, sex and hypertension with latent difference score modeling.
Abstract: Brain aging research relies mostly on cross-sectional studies, which infer true changes from age differences. We present longitudinal measures of five-year change in the regional brain volumes in healthy adults. Average and individual differences in volume changes and the effects of age, sex and hypertension were assessed with latent difference score modeling. The caudate, the cerebellum, the hippocampus and the association cortices shrunk substantially. There was minimal change in the entorhinal and none in the primary visual cortex. Longitudinal measures of shrinkage exceeded cross-sectional estimates. All regions except the inferior parietal lobule showed individual differences in change. Shrinkage of the cerebellum decreased from young to middle adulthood, and increased from middle adulthood to old age. Shrinkage of the hippocampus, the entorhinal cortices, the inferior temporal cortex and the prefrontal white matter increased with age. Moreover, shrinkage in the hippocampus and the cerebellum accelerated with age. In the hippocampus, both linear and quadratic trends in incremental age-related shrinkage were limited to the hypertensive participants. Individual differences in shrinkage correlated across some regions, suggesting common causes. No sex differences in age trends except for the caudate were observed. We found no evidence of neuroprotective effects of larger brain size or educational attainment.
2,635 citations
Cites background from "The assessment and analysis of hand..."
...All participants were consistent right-handers, as indicated by a score above 75% on the Edinburgh Handedness Questionnaire (Oldfield, 1971)....
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TL;DR: Two areas with activation properties that become active during finger movement, regardless of how it is evoked, and their activation should increase when the same movement is elicited by the observation of an identical movement made by another individual are found.
Abstract: How does imitation occur? How can the motor plans necessary for imitating an action derive from the observation of that action? Imitation may be based on a mechanism directly matching the observed action onto an internal motor representation of that action (“direct matching hypothesis”). To test this hypothesis, normal human participants were asked to observe and imitate a finger movement and to perform the same movement after spatial or symbolic cues. Brain activity was measured with functional magnetic resonance imaging. If the direct matching hypothesis is correct, there should be areas that become active during finger movement, regardless of how it is evoked, and their activation should increase when the same movement is elicited by the observation of an identical movement made by another individual. Two areas with these properties were found in the left inferior frontal cortex (opercular region) and the rostral-most region of the right superior parietal lobule. Imitation has a central role in human development and learning of motor, communicative, and social skills (1, 2). However, the neural basis of imitation and its functional mechanisms are poorly understood. Data from patients with brain lesions suggest that frontal and parietal regions may be critical for human imitation (3) but do not provide insights on the mechanisms underlying it. Models of imitation based on instrumental
2,536 citations
TL;DR: This study, using fMRI in conjunction with masked stimulus presentations, represents an initial step toward determining the role of the amygdala in nonconscious processing.
Abstract: Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) of the human brain was used to study whether the amygdala is activated in response to emotional stimuli, even in the absence of explicit knowledge that such stimuli were presented. Pictures of human faces bearing fearful or happy expressions were presented to 10 normal, healthy subjects by using a backward masking procedure that resulted in 8 of 10 subjects reporting that they had not seen these facial expressions. The backward masking procedure consisted of 33 msec presentations of fearful or happy facial expressions, their offset coincident with the onset of 167 msec presentations of neutral facial expressions. Although subjects reported seeing only neutral faces, blood oxygen level-dependent (BOLD) fMRI signal in the amygdala was significantly higher during viewing of masked fearful faces than during the viewing of masked happy faces. This difference was composed of significant signal increases in the amygdala to masked fearful faces as well as significant signal decreases to masked happy faces, consistent with the notion that the level of amygdala activation is affected differentially by the emotional valence of external stimuli. In addition, these facial expressions activated the sublenticular substantia innominata (SI), where signal increases were observed to both fearful and happy faces—suggesting a spatial dissociation of territories that respond to emotional valence versus salience or arousal value. This study, using fMRI in conjunction with masked stimulus presentations, represents an initial step toward determining the role of the amygdala in nonconscious processing.
2,226 citations
Cites methods from "The assessment and analysis of hand..."
...Handedness was defined by the Edinburgh Inventory (Oldfield, 1971)....
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TL;DR: In this paper, the authors performed an fMRI study in which participants inhaled odorants producing a strong feeling of disgust and observed video clips showing the emotional facial expression of disgust, which activated the same sites in anterior insula and to a lesser extent in the anterior cingulate cortex.
Abstract: What neural mechanism underlies the capacity to understand the emotions of others? Does this mechanism involve brain areas normally involved in experiencing the same emotion? We performed an fMRI study in which participants inhaled odorants producing a strong feeling of disgust. The same participants observed video clips showing the emotional facial expression of disgust. Observing such faces and feeling disgust activated the same sites in the anterior insula and to a lesser extent in the anterior cingulate cortex. Thus, as observing hand actions activates the observer's motor representation of that action, observing an emotion activates the neural representation of that emotion. This finding provides a unifying mechanism for understanding the behaviors of others.
1,904 citations
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TL;DR: Right, mixed and left handers are found in binomial proportions in seven samples of varied subjects whose lateral preferences were ascertained by several methods.
Abstract: Right, mixed and left handers are found in binomial proportions in seven samples of varied subjects whose lateral prefernces were ascertained by several methods. These proportions have been obtained in previous studies of humans and animals when the performance of several actions has been recorded in complete samples and when consistent right and left subjects have been separated from those of mixed usage.
626 citations
Book•
01 Jan 1960
307 citations
"The assessment and analysis of hand..." refers background in this paper
...ZANGWILL'S [6] discussion of speech and handedness affords an apt illustration of this point....
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TL;DR: In this article, the authors made an inquiry by means of a questionnaire which included a "handedness inventory" into the prevalence of left-handedness among musicians, and the difficulties, if any, which lefthanders experienced in acquiring executant skills.
Abstract: An inquiry by means of a questionnaire which included a ‘handedness inventory’ was made into the prevalence of left-handedness among musicians, and the difficulties, if any, which lefthanders experienced in acquiring executant skills. It was found that left-handedness is neither less nor more common in the group of musicians studied than in a population of psychology undergraduates, and that left-handedness did not in general occasion any special difficulty. The left-handers adapted successfully to the ‘right-handedness’ of their instruments, the only substantial connexion in which left-handed practices were retained being in conducting. It is suggested on the basis of these findings that ‘right-handedness’ is less a matter of superior inherent ‘dexterity’ or the capacity for agility, precision and speed in the right hand than of closer, more immediate, availability of the right hand as the instrument of the individual's conceptions and intentions. It is further suggested that the especial function of the dominant cerebral hemisphere is to mediate between the executive intentions of the individual and his physical means of expressing them, whether through manual or vocal channels.
115 citations
Journal Article•
TL;DR: It is true that a few cases of this disease are seen from time to time in Australia; but the patients have been immigrants infected in their country of Orkney in the Mediterranean area.
Abstract: This little book is a review of and contribution to the subject of language and its relationship to cerebral dominance In general it emphasizes that in right-handed people language function is nearly regularly and fairly strictly localized to the left hemisphere In left-handed and clearly ambidextrous people there is still a tendency for language to be localized in the left hemisphere, but its localization is not as complete, and various language functions may escape in injury to one hemisphere Recovery tends to be more complete following acute lesions of the left hemisphere in predominantly left-handed individuals
64 citations
Journal Article•
44 citations
"The assessment and analysis of hand..." refers methods in this paper
...HUMPHREY, M. Handedness and Cerebral Dominance....
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...DUROST [2], HULL [3], HUMPHREY [4] and ANNETT [5]....
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...METHOD, PROCEDURE, SUBJECTS In the course of a search for left-handed musicians by OLDEIED [8] a modified version of HUMPHREY’S [4] inventory was used, twenty items being selected from it....
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...Inventories of this kind have been devised and used by a large number of previous workers, e.g. DUROST [2], HULL [3], HUMPHREY [4] and ANNETT [5]....
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