Thursday, July 25, 2013

Brain lateralization.

http://mimh.edu/Portals/0/SampleChapterLateralizationofCerebralFunctions.pdf

No talk of a left tongue or relating to the right eye but a good read on brain lateralization. A quick excerpt.

"Equipotentiality, most clearly attributed to Lenneberg (1967), portrays the cerebral hemispheres of the brain as having equal potential in the development of functional specialization for language. Although this is an appealing notion, neurophysiological differences between hemispheres (Molfese et al., 1975; Wada et al., 1975) and early neuroanatomical differences limit its explanatory power. Of course, rejection of the notion of early equal potential of hemispheres does not rule out the possibility that functional lateralization is a progressive, developmental process.

The extent to which functions are progressively lateralized to cerebral hemispheres is still a matter of controversy (Kinsbourne, 1975; Satz, 1976). Cerebral lateralization has been portrayed to follow patterns similar to that for the development of numerous psychological functions (Bruner, 1974; Piaget, 1952). From this point of view, the functional lateralization of hemispheres is seen to follow a progressive pattern of consolidation of functions corresponding to the child’s neurological development (e.g., Dean, 1985a; Satz et al., 1975). Although arguments favoring early speciļ¬c specialization continue (Kinsbourne, 1975), a large corpus of data exists supporting developmental progression in the lateralization of functions (see Dean, 1985a). While left hemisphericasymmetries related to language are present at birth, further research has demonstrated that language may still develop normally in children who sustain a unilateral lesion in the left hemisphere (Dean &Anderson, 1997). Neuroimaging studies have postulated two sides to the development or presence of functional lateralization such that language is either bilaterally organized at birth and becomes specializedto the left hemisphere or language is localized to the left hemisphere at birth (Balsamo et al., 2002; Booth et al., 2001)."


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