Effect of familial sinistrality on planum temporale surface and brain tissue asymmetries
Cerebral Cortex. 2009-10-21; 20(6): 1476-1485
DOI: 10.1093/cercor/bhp209
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1. Cereb Cortex. 2010 Jun;20(6):1476-85. doi: 10.1093/cercor/bhp209. Epub 2009 Oct
21.
Effect of familial sinistrality on planum temporale surface and brain tissue
asymmetries.
Tzourio-Mazoyer N(1), Simon G, Crivello F, Jobard G, Zago L, Perchey G, Hervé PY,
Joliot M, Petit L, Mellet E, Mazoyer B.
Author information:
(1)Centre d’Imagerie-Neurosciences et Applications aux Pathologies UMR6232 CNRS,
CEA, Université de Caen Basse-Normandie, Caen, France.
The impact of having left-handers (LHs) among one’s close relatives, called
familial sinistrality (FS), on neuroanatomical markers of left-hemisphere
language specialization was studied in 274 normal adults, including 199 men and
75 women, among whom 77 men and 27 women were positive for FS. Measurements of
the surface of a phonological cortical area, the « planum temporale » (PT), and
gray and white matter hemispheric volumes and asymmetries were made using brain
magnetic resonance images. The size of the left PT of subjects with left-handed
close relatives (FS+) was reduced by 10%, decreasing with the number of
left-handed relatives, and lowest when the subject’s mother was left-handed. Such
findings had no counterparts in the right hemisphere, and the subject’s
handedness and sex were found to have no significant effect or interaction with
FS on the left PT size. The FS+ subjects also exhibited increased gray matter
volume, reduced hemispheric gray matter leftward asymmetry, and, in LHs, reduced
strength of hand preference. These results add to the increasing body of evidence
suggesting multiple and somewhat independent mechanisms for the inheritance of
hand and language lateralization.
DOI: 10.1093/cercor/bhp209
PMID: 19846471 [Indexed for MEDLINE]