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Handedness
Sebastian Ocklenburg1, Onur Güntürkün2
1ICAN Institute for Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, MSH Medical School Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany; Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, Ruhr University Bochum, Bochum, Germany.
Handbook of Clinical Neurology
|March 12, 2025
Summary
This chapter reviews human handedness, covering hand preference and skill assessment. Understanding handedness is crucial for neurologic research and practice, linking to brain asymmetry and cognitive abilities.
Area of Science:
- Neurology
- Neuroscience
- Human Motor Control
Background:
- Human handedness, encompassing hand preference and hand skill, is a key aspect of motor asymmetry.
- Assessment of handedness is vital in clinical neurology and research settings.
Purpose of the Study:
- To provide a comprehensive overview of human handedness literature.
- To detail methods for assessing hand preference and hand skill.
- To explore the associations of handedness with other motor asymmetries, brain function, and cognitive abilities.
Main Methods:
- Review of existing literature on human handedness.
- Discussion of questionnaires and tests for assessing hand preference and skill.
- Analysis of associations with other motor asymmetries, brain activation, and structural markers.
Main Results:
- Established methods for categorizing handedness (left, right, mixed).
- Explored links between handedness and other motor asymmetries like footedness.
- Discussed relationships between handedness, brain activity, and cognitive functions.
Conclusions:
- Handedness is a significant indicator of hemispheric asymmetry.
- Incorporating handedness assessment is critical for advancing clinical neurologic research and practice.
- Potential relevance of handedness retraining in neurologic contexts.
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