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Brain Lateralization And Gender differences

by — Last updated: 2014-02-04 in Nervous System Disorders and Diseases

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People are often categorized as "right: or "left" brainers. Very different from being right or left handed! But what does it really mean anyway, to be a "right" or a "left" brainer? Is there any medical significance to these associations?

The researchers also investigated the effects of gender on lateralization and how lateralization changes with physiological development between the ages of 7 and 29. It was shown that differences in gender didn’t significantly affect brain lateralization. However, the results of that research truly contradict the results obtained in prior experiments, in which gender differences were shown to play a tremendous role in brain connectivity. This may be due to Differing methods between the two studies.

Jared Nielsen, a graduate student in neuroscience who carried out the study as part of his coursework made the following statement: “If you have a connection that is strongly left lateralized, it relates to other strongly lateralized connection only if both sets of connections have a brain region in common. Everyone should understand the personality types associated with the terminology ‘left-brained’ and ‘right-brained’ and how they relate to him or her personally; however, we just do not see patterns where the whole left-brain network is more connected or the whole right-brain network is more connected in some people.

Read More: Female vs. Male Brain – Is There A Difference?

It may be that personality type has nothing to do with the hemisphere being more active, stronger, or more connected.”

In other words, it is not accurate to say that creative people are more ‘right –brained’. It is not their over active right brain that is making them more creative, but rather, their entire brain. This finding reinforces the fact that some brain functions could be shifted more toward one hemisphere. 

For instance, language processing tends to be more associated with the left side of the brain, while attention and focus are considered to be right brain functions.

Another important point: in the early 19th century, certain scientists and authors believed that the shape of the skull could be read for moral and intellectual features. For example, the faculty of ‘philoprogenitiveness’ from the Greek for ‘love of offspring’, was located centrally at the back of the head. They coined this as ‘phrenology’, a concept related to physiognomy, in which it is said that one’s face is the perfect window to his/her character and personality. However, this idea is discredited by some common discrepancies in real life, such as criminals having an “attractive” and “trustworthy” face (example of the notorious serial killer Ted Bundy).

More studies need to be done to establish the relationship between behavior and lateralized connectivity, but so far researchers have demonstrated the left and right lateralized networks are stronger among a constellation of hubs in the left and right hemispheres. However, such connections do not allow us to favor one network over the other.