Following a two-year study, University of Utah researchers have debunked that myth through identifying specific networks in the left and right brain that process lateralized functions.
Lateralization of brain function means that there are certain mental processes that are mainly specialized to one of the brain's hemispheres, researchers said. In the study, they analysed resting brain scans of 1,011 people between the ages of 7 and 29.
In each person, they studied functional lateralization of the brain measured for brain regions รข€” finding no relationship that individuals preferentially use their leftbrain network or right-brain network more often.
"It's absolutely true that some brain functions occur in one or the other side of the brain. Language tends to be on the left, attention more on the right. But people don't tend to have a stronger left or right-sided brain network. It seems to be determined more connection by connection," said Jeff Anderson, lead author of the study.
The participants' scans were taken during a functional connectivity MRI analysis, meaning a participant lay in a scanner for 5 to 10 minutes while their resting brain activity was analysed.
By viewing brain activity, scientists can correlate brain activity in one region of the brain compared to another. In the study, researchers broke up the brain into 7,000 regions and examined which regions of the brain were more lateralized.
They looked for connections and added up the number of connections for each brain region that was left-lateralized or right-lateralized .
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