Conférence IBIO/RRI IMPACT - Robin Gerrits, "The massive flexibility of human functional hemispheric brain organization"

Abstract

According to textbook descriptions of the functional organization of the human brain, the left hemisphere predominantly governs cognitive functions such as speech and manual praxis, while the right hemisphere assumes dominant control over other functions like spatial attention and face recognition. However, this stereotypical ‘hemispheric division of labor’ does not account for every single person. In fact, mounting evidence suggests that deviations from the typical pattern of functional hemispheric segregation are quite common even in ‘neurotypical’ populations. Moreover, neurologically healthy individuals also vary significantly from each other in the relative degree to which the dominant and non-dominant hemispheres are active during the performance of specific lateralized tasks, ranging from an outspoken asymmetry to a (nearly) symmetrical activation pattern. Examining this variability is a core interest of our lab and hence individual differences in hemispheric organization will be the topic of my talk. We have been investigating this topic by targeting samples with special cases of asymmetrical organization, such as individuals with a complete reversal of the visceral organs (situs inversus totalis), left-handers with right hemispheric language dominance and individuals with near-symmetrical brain activity during language production. During this talk I will give a brief overview of these studies and demonstrate the enormous flexibility of the asymmetrical organization of the human brain.

Contacts: