Atypical lateralization of language predicts cerebral asymmetries in parietal gesture representations

Abstract

Humans typically show left-hemisphere dominance both for language and manual gestures. If this reflects a dependence of these behaviors on a common cerebral specialization, then healthy left-handers with atypical organization of language should show a similar pattern for gesture. Consistent with this hypothesis, we report fMRI data indicating that sinistrals (5/15) with bilateral, or right-lateralized, language representations in inferior frontal cortex exhibit a similar atypical pattern in inferior parietal representations of familiar gestures.