Recent advances in handedness genetics
Abstract
Around the world, about 10% people prefer using their left-hand. What leads to this fixed proportion across populations and what determines left versus right preference at an individual level is far from being established. Genetic studies are a tool to answer these questions. Analysis in twins and family show that about 25% of handedness variance is due to genetics. In spite of very large cohorts, only a small fraction of this genetic component can be pinpoint to specific genes. Some of the genetic associations identified so far provide evidence for shared biology contributing to both handedness and cerebral asymmetries. In addition, they demonstrate that handedness is a highly polygenic trait. Typically, handedness is measured as the preferred hand for writing. This is a very convenient measure, especially to reach large sample sizes, but quantitative measures might capture different handedness dimensions and be better suited for genetic analyses. This paper reviews the latest findings from molecular genetic studies as well as the implications of using different ways of assessing handedness.
Citation
Paracchini , S 2021 , ' Recent advances in handedness genetics ' , Symmetry , vol. 13 , no. 10 , 1792 . https://doi.org/10.3390/sym13101792
Publication
Symmetry
Status
Peer reviewed
ISSN
2073-8994Type
Journal item
Rights
Copyright: © 2021 by the author. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
Description
Funding: SP is supported by the Royal Society.Collections
Items in the St Andrews Research Repository are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.