Deadly dilemma

I was waiting on this book (his website) before I started the previous one.  Read a couple of chapters and now in the dilemma of finishing the second or going back to the first.

Neither book I believe will mention anything resembling my own off the wall hypothesis, but I was wondering if either book would mention Dr. Derakhshan's theory or the study by Carr et al where they demonstrate that the dominant hemisphere can initiate the action of the muscular pairs close to the axial skeleton. My own feeling is that I learned to organize myself in a 'right sided' control way with my musculature close to the axial skeleton. It lead to my right side having greater control and the left more of a stabilization role. Unfortunately, it works out to a greater load and twisting of my axial skeleton to the left as my right had more freedom and range in many if not all movements.

Just looked in the index for "Carr"  in the Right Hand Left Hand book and came up with an interesting side note. "The Scottish surnames Carr and Kerr come from the Gaelic caerr, meaning awkward."

It goes on to mention a famous poem about the fighting abilities of clan Kerr who fought left handed.

But the Kerrs were aye the deadliest foes
That e’er to Englishmen were known
For they were all bred left handed men
And fence [defence] against them there was none

From Google a link

And From left field

A longstanding dream theme of my mine is that I am on the golf course but can't take a back swing to hit the ball. There's a multitude of reasons and scenarios but always the frustrating feeling of not being able to take a swing. Last night I had one where I was able to tee off but only standing on my left foot. I pulled it left of the green but made decent contact.

Childhoods End

Arthur C Clarke had a book by the above title that I read as a kid.  Reading a lengthy but fun book that reminded me of it with a similar title The Evolution of Childhood: Relationships, Emotion, Mind.  Have not gotten that far into it yet but one of the facts that he has been making is that as our brain develops it gets rid of a great deal of the excess cells and connections that were created. The author briefly so far has touched on brain lateralization which is felt to be started before birth but that it is possible with a brain lesion for the other side to take over the dominant role at a young enough age. I am sort of plowing through the book at this point in time with the plan of taking a second look at it. It's fairly complicated with many unfamiliar terms and my brain has it's gears whirring to remember what many of the semi familiar neuroanatomical words are.

As for my work on myself I am finding more of a sense of my facial and sublingual musculature that I feel is 'left initiated'  There is a smoothness to some of the actions that I have not felt before. Even though it feels like I am pushing through a great resistance I am usually surprised at the strength of the movements which have reflections away from the point I am trying to move. 

Harmless blather more or less

Running with my personal meme of the past week or so where I think I am asking the question does my thought process have any value to anyone else. I mostly write in the first person because I do not want to generalize my thoughts and feelings on others.  I don't think I am the only one to perceive others persona normally as right sided and that I am the only one who did not have an independent left tongue/sublingual musculature/throat/head. In fact I imagine I am like most people and that there was certain advantage to lateralize control to one cerebral hemisphere. Where I am less sure is that I am actually doing what I think I am doing now in differentiating these left side functions (right cerebral hemisphere).

I am fairly positive I never really saw the left half of people's faces most of my life. It was there but somehow unseen. In my attempts to see the left side of face and relate to it using my left side of face I am using the myself in a different way than my normal. In attempting to differentiate  the left side musculature in an independent way from the right I am less sure I am achieving my goals. It feels different like I am using the left side as the initiator of the movement but I don't think I can be sure. Also I believe I can use the left side musculature in speech but somehow cannot gain independent left side control of the tongue in movements in my mouth.

So a more or less harmless blog is probably not a bad medium for what I am trying to say. There is so much more scientifically rigorous thinking about the issue if one is interested one can find. For now I will still try and work on trying to achieve a left side independence in perception and movement.

Plus, I write like crap

Courage, not

How do I know anything of enough value to speak up on it?

I went back to school at age 35 after stints in the Merchant Marine and General Engineering contracting and took approximately 4 years of schooling. I graduated summa cum laude with a physical therapy assistant license from a junior college.  Like most careers it took about 5 years of on the job training to become experienced. However, if I switched to a new discipline like Spinal Cord as compared to Acute Inpatient I would not know as much as someone right of school who had spent 6 months on that service.

Patients can tell quickly by hundreds of clues which therapists had experience with their injury type and who did not. An easy give away is how much pain was caused.  As a therapist working with spinal cord injuries one of the hardest task was to maintain a patient's range of motion in their joints while minimizing unnecessary pain.  I spent around 4 years on on the Spinal Cord Injury service but I was never once satisfied with my technique. Several times I lost the battle of maintaining ROM.  At the time, most patients after the initial injury would be put on the rotating bed to prevent pressure sores. They would sometimes wait of upwards to a month for the spinal cord cervical fusion operation. They were almost always in a cervical halo unable to move their bodies and in significant pain in the regions that they had sensation. Many times their shoulder joints would be the most problematic and that was the area I had to put the most attention. Even with premedication for pain, I frequently felt more like a torturer than a benefactor. The most discouraging experiences I had as a PT assistant was to watch a patient lose range in their shoulder's daily while suffering under my hands.

I did learn and improve my technique over time but that learning was mostly an internal sense of what would would work and not work with that individual. Sometimes the most obvious beneficial thing I could do was to ask for help from other members of the team. Heterotopic ossification is big problem with spinal cord patients. It would greatly increase pain if present during ROM plus limit motion. Often therapists would be the first one to 'feel' the problem. For the most part experience was learned on the job with trying to distinguish what worked, what didn't and why not. That was true in all three careers that I had. Because I did not know something it was often useful to ask but the self search for an answer was in a sense the 'truer knowledge'. It was not mine for good or bad until I experienced the trial and error process. That does not mean I couldn't also be dead wrong.

 On occasion that search would stand up to substantial knowledge, experience and position of authority. My first job on a tanker as a very inexperienced third mate by I stopped both the chief and second mate from opening the wrong sequence of valves in loading the tanks. It's possible they were testing me. However from their reactions I don't think so. The courage to say something came from the act of spending hours with the ship's piping diagram trying to figure it out by myself.

Today, by chance met an old friend and colleague and the thought crossed my mind to tell her about this blog. I thought for a minute but took the easy way out like the guy in this video. Sometimes, I just want to fit in.

Pot meet Kettle

Since I am not sure my ideas are scientifically sound I am hesitant about broadcasting them too much. I believe I feel a difference in the way I differentiate my left and right structures of my head, and that is tied into how I see the persona of others represented in themselves.  I keep finding examples to tie things together but at best they are weak anecdotes rather than a structural proof of what I believe. There is a great deal on the web that deals with outlandish claims and how do I throw out the good from the bad?

Most of my judgements are made within seconds and depend a great on my gut 'feel' on whether the issue is possible. Recently found some very clever 'flat earth videos'. They have very a great deal computer generated animation showing how the earth is actually flat and come up a with a pretty good story of how everything ties together. I spent a large part of the last two days trying to think of ways I could disprove their theories but my proofs are weak enough that a smart person could find a way to stump me with an alternate explanation (at least for awhile). I have navigated on a third mates license using the principles of celestial navigation but far more navigating was by rote technique than a good understanding of how everything tied together.  I think the flat earth is a bunch of BS but they would most likely feel the same way about my 'hypothesis'.

In one of my favorite books the author brings up the mythos over logos argument in that we live by myth but is overturned by knowledge but then absorbed by the mythos

The mythos-over-logos argument points to the fact that each child is born as ignorant as any caveman. What keeps the world from reverting to the Neandertal with each generation is the continuing, ongoing mythos, transformed into logos but still mythos, the huge body of common knowledge that unites our minds as cells are united in the body of man. To feel that one is not so united, that one can accept or discard this mythos as one pleases, is not to understand what the mythos is.

I am sincere about my 'hypothesis'. I am not sure it is correct.

Man overboard

"Humans are pattern seeking animals. We must find cause and meaning in all events(quite apart from the probable reality that the universe doesn't care much about us and often operates in a random manner). I call this bias "adaptationism"-the notion that everything must fit, must have a purpose, and in the strongest version, must be for the best."

The quote is from Stephen Jay Gould, in his book Bully for Brontosaurus,. In the chapter "The Panda's Thumb of Technology", he draws on an analogy of the QWERTY typewriter and the panda's thumb illustrating it may not be the best system for typing or in the case of the panda the most functional design. However, it still prevailed in being adapted or evolved in a certain time and place.

I often wonder if I am seeing patterns that are not there in order to explain to myself what I feel. Some of the exercises created by Moshe Feldenkrais are strictly done in the mind with very little movement seen from an observer. The imaginary pane of glass sliding through the body from the head is one such and that is where the idea comes from in my own take on it. Another exercise one uses an imaginary brush to paint the outside of the head on either side. This exercise pointed out to me many years ago the way I used the left and right side of my head was different but I could not put a finger on how.

"We normally pay no attention to the asymmetry of facial movements as we speak (unless extreme in severity or when we are alerted about it in a particular case by someone more sensitive than ourselves)"

Quote is from Dr. Derakhshan's paper.  

I could feel the asymmetry but not equalize the movements in my left jaw and neck.  It led to the perception that I am always slightly twisted so that my right side is given a slight advantage to have slightly more free range. It was a very long time before I felt that I did not have a separate perception, a left moving image of my jaw, tongue, sublingual musculature and throat. There was a separate realization that I did not really see the left side of someone's face. I think I see normally the 'persona' as existing in the right half of someone and that is how my body in total responds in kind.  I feel now I have a partial use of  left moving image but I can not say that it is a real benefit. More to the point of this post why would I be the only idiot talking about it. I don't know, but the most logical conclusion would be that I am incorrect.  Later in the chapter by Gould, he throws me a partial lifeline that I can cling to. "Stasis is the norm for complex systems; change when provoked at all, is usually rapid and episodic."

I'm more comfortable with the slow and steady kind of change as I hold steadfast to my partial life buoy.

Eccentric DOMS?

As a kid when I used to get sore from a physical activity it was often fairly immediate and usually rectified within two days or so but as I have aged I often get the delayed onset muscle soreness that seems to show up two to three days later.  It has more the dull aching quality than the sharp sense of overuse. Yesterday I had a full day left side of my face, tongue, throat, sublingual soreness that flirted with the verge of being a headache. I did get out and played golf in a very nice afternoon which kept me fairly distracted from the pain but it was always in the background.

I attribute the pain to the work I did in the class on Sunday with manipulating the tongue.Even though I continue to be not successful in getting of a fully functional image of the left tongue I continued to get more of a independent left initiated muscle groups of the left jaw, throat and sublingual region. Many times I have gotten similar pain in my attempts to use the left side musculature of my head in as the initiator of the muscular patterns involved in communication. DOMS (delayed onset muscle soreness) is now being attributed to the inflammatory reactions associated with eccentric contractions or as a muscle lengthens under load. I wouldn't  think there would a great deal of load or for that matter eccentric contractions in the regions I am trying to activate. However, if I am using the left side in a subordinate way to the right usually in attempting to initiate with the left maybe I am resetting the sarcomeres.

A couple of advil (generic brand) did wonders for the pain.

Slughorn to my lips, again

I went to a very nice course yesterday by a teacher who is a practitioner based on the works of Moshe Feldenkrais.  She is a member of the guild and certified to start her own training program where people can be certified as a practitioner.  The advertisement for the course I took is below and I highly recommend taking one of her courses. I have done many lessons on the same themes but have not done a full day of movement lessons for some years now. I definitely need it with the limitations of my slug like life style making some of the simple movements and positions much harder than they needed to be. It was very nice to be reminded of the pelvis spine connection all the way to the base of my skull.

However my own take on the left and right tongue got in the way on my central issue on the use of my tongue. I still do not have a good representation of my left tongue as a separate entity from the right tongue unlike the sublingual musculature which has gained good measure of independence. Doing some of the more easier exercises with the tongue was difficult and my own thinking/feeling about it made it more complex. I feel that my own movement representation of my tongue is only right sided (left hemisphere dictated) with the left side representation is suppressed (neglected?) to the point of non existence. In other words I have a left tongue and right tongue, a left throat and right throat and to some degree it relates to jaw facial and eye musculature. Again if there is a common drive the movement representation may lay in the one hemisphere. There may be no benefit in attempting to do what I am trying to achieve and I would be far better off in attempting to develop my one representation of the tongue instead of questing for my dark tower. Even if I achieve my goal I don't see much translatable benefit for others.

What with my search drawn out thro’ years, my hope	20
Dwindled into a ghost not fit to cope

On the other hand the movements relating to the spine in course reminded me in a way of what I feel in the use of the sublingual musculature. Starting one small movement in the left suprahyoid musculature the whole us of my head takes on a different sense. The upper cervical muscles, the left jaw lower face, left eye all come into a prominence that does not exist in my normal use. The way I turn my head has a different sense. My head musculature then can moves in a way that I could not have foreseen but only discovered. It is still somewhat painful, spastic and poorly controlled but has a definite 'left' feel about it.

Dauntless the slug-horn to my lips I set,
And blew “Childe Roland to the Dark Tower came.”

Tally ho, of course there may be a fine line between fool's errand and noble quest.

By learning to recognize habits and patterns relating to how we use our eyes, tongue, jaw and breathing, we can experience limitless changes to improve our self-use, balance and posture. In his book, AWARENESS THROUGH MOVEMENT, Moshe titles chapter 10 "The Movement of the Eyes Organizes the Movement of the Body". This is significant: proper, efficient use of the eyes will radically change how you move, feel and go about your everyday activities- the quality of everything you do will improve. 

And, if your tongue and eyes are free, your neck will be free. In this workshop, using lessons in sitting, lying on the back, standing and on the belly, we will explore the inter-connectedness of movements of your eyes, tongue, jaw, neck and breathing.

Ugh

The annoying thing about reading scientific articles is that they often lead to conclusions that lead in the opposite direction from my own thinking. Skimmed several articles today. Found one that suggested by trying to convert left handers to right handers made part of the dominant hemisphere stronger(left hemisphere, right side control).  It may also points to large degree of superficiality in my thinking.

The second article matches my perception about my left and right side to some degree. As a generalization I feel my left side takes on the stabilization role to a large degree to put the right side in a slight position of advantage where it has more freedom of movement. I think what the article suggests it that the non- dominant side related better to unforeseen loading during the experiment.

When I see people in the distance I often try to see the persona expressed in their left half of face. I feel there is a postural shift involved. I have to relate left side to left side. It does not matter so much what they are but how I perceive them. So it may be possible I am doing the opposite of what I think and making myself more right sided left hemisphere dominant. Or maybe I am making my left side the dominant side with more right hemisphere input. I don't know.


Quote from first article

 In summary, the reorganization patterns found in converted left-handers point to two distinct neuronal correlates of handedness in executive and associative sensorimotor cortices. Although the executive representations in SM1 and caudal PMd are more flexible and can be influenced by preferred hand use throughout life, representations in higher-order sensorimotor areas of the dominant hemisphere (i.e., in the inferior parietal cortex and rostrolateral PMd) cannot be switched by educational training. Indeed, these higher-order representations are paradoxically strengthened by attempts to switch handedness for writing.

Quote from second article


These results indicate more effective load compensation responses for the nondominant arm; supporting a specialized role of the nondominant arm/hemisphere system in sensory feedback mediated error correction mechanisms. 

I shot an elephant in my pajamas, how I got there is the question.

Yesterday I posted a gif I saw on Imgur in the morning by that evening it was on the news. I know I had nothing to do with the viralness of the video but it is remarkable why so many people related to it. Last week another video went viral showing a mother elephant trying to help a baby elephant out of a hole and another mother finally comes along and helps.

I have heard and read throughout my life the 'danger' of anthropomorphizing animal life as one should not interpret animal behavior with human emotions. Disney productions aside I wonder if I don't do the opposite and try to separate human emotions into something special. It certainly makes it easier to have an animal slain then eat it, if I imagine it as unfeeling. (I am an avid meat eater). It is hard for me to look at the orangutan gif and not get the feeling orangutan laughed fell over and basically said "stop it man you're killing me with your trick." Watching the elephants the 'concern' for others comes through. What else could be the motivating factor in my mind? They 'cared' that the baby elephant was stuck. I would go far as to say bees sting when they are mad. Often I am the most idiotic when I get angry over things that can be the most trivial. It is the emotions that drives my actions, then rationalize to justify what I did. One of the largest motivating factors is the fear I have for so many things that I compensate for in so many ways. Again the motivating factor can be very trivial as compared to the outcome.

What does this have to do with the left tongue? I get the feel I did not see what was right in front of my face. I saw and related to the right side of someone else and the left side sort of did not exist. It was there but I only partially related to it. Seeing the perona exhibited in the left side at times and trying to use my left side of face and mimic the emotions expressed often for the tiniest moment tells me I don't really have a clue how I function. Feeling the 'left' tongue/sublingual/throat/facial muscles operate in a new way says to me I can't trust how I know and define myself.

pic of elephant trunk hugs in link

Orangutan laughs

Cute video

Orangutan watches magic trick

Watching the eyes and facial expression of the orangutan it's surprising to me how much I relate to his/her feelings. Even watching the human relate to the orangutan gives me the feel that his surprise was to how human was the orangutan's expression.

Mixed up?

I have posted the link to the study regarding elephants strong brain lateralization several times. The article suggests one sided lateralization is more functional in complex tasks. I feel that I do not use left half of my face/ throat/sublingual/tongue musculature in the same way as my right side counterparts. I think my left side somehow plays a subordinate role to the right side dominance so much so that I actually could not differentiate their movement in many but not all tasks. If there is a common drive that might explain to some degree what I feel.

Is there a functional reason to be one sided?   I don't know but an interesting quote from the article in reference to handedness.

In contrast to theories that center on the relative abilities of left- and right-handers, some researchers have focused on individuals with mixed, or no, hand preference. The idea that mixed-handedness and weak laterality are related to learning disabilities has a long history first proposed by Orton (1937). More recently,Crow et al. (1998) argued that the evolution of laterality is the key characteristic that allowed language and higher cognitive functions to develop. Individuals without a strong hand preference are thought to suffer from “hemispheric indecision,” which reduces academic ability and makes the individual more prone to psychotic disorders. Once again, evidence is mixed, with some researchers finding support for this theory (Crow et al. 1998; Nettle 2003) while others did not (Heinz and Heinz 2002). Recent large-scale studies, however, found lower levels of cognitive ability in mixed-handers. Corballis et al. (2008) used data from an IQ test administered in New Zealand as part of a nationwide television program. Data from 1,355 respondents revealed no difference in IQ between left- and right-handers. Mixed-handers, however, performed more poorly, especially on subscales measuring arithmetic, memory, and reasoning. Another large-scale study byPeters, Reimers, and Manning (2006) collected data from 250,000 respondents using the Internet. Individuals who reported no hand preference for writing had significantly lower spatial ability and a higher prevalence of dyslexia, hyperactivity, and asthma than individuals with a strong hand preference.


My sense is that I am not so much right handed as I that I am organized to put the right side in a slight but significant position of advantage in most tasks, Including seeing others, eating, talking, writing, reading, walking, running, etc

Not the low brow

Still thinking Geoff's eyebrows. If I was his infant I think my attention would be drawn to his high more active brow rather than the low brow. My attention is still drawn to his right side and I have to directly try and keep my attention on his left in order to see the difference. Otherwise all I see is his right.

His eyebrows remind me of the movement of this girl's hands. (Video has been taken down) Could the movements be explained by a common drive manifested with the delay in only the excitatory pathway through the corpus callosum? I don't really know. My thinking in this endeavor is not scientific or for that matter logical ( I hope it is) but it does arrive from the subjective experience of playing with my own movements and paying attention.  I obviously could be very wrong.

PS Seen twice today where the eyebrow on the left is more engaged. Here's one

President Obama gif

I know the President is left handed but if I don't actually look for his left eyebrow I don't see the left eyebrow raise. My attention is normally drawn to the right eye and head nod.

Eyebrow range

Just finished a quick nine holes and had my usual vodka grapefruit at the nineteenth hole. There are several TV's playing that ring the bar with the sound off on most. Watched an interview across the bar trying to concentrate on the left half of face of Geoff Shackleford, a very bright, good looking, articulate, young commentator and his right eyebrow kept jumping out at me. In trying to concentrate on the left half face my peripheral attention often notices more movement on the right not displayed on the left. Geoff's right eyebrow seems to raise earlier, more often and higher than the left. Most of the time the left eyebrow seems to be recruited based on his emphasis, later than the right, and dropped quicker.

From my perspective he is communicating with his right side of face and the left reflects what the right is doing when the stimulus is enough.

I have no real opinion on the range finders.

Left, Right and independent

Left, Right and different

I have had in the back of my mind (s) this short interview with Michael Gazzaniga. Very interesting throughout but what he says with approx 6 min and 20 secs left I found the most intriguing. That the right hemisphere in corpus callosum split patients can learn to talk after a long period of silence.

In the normal person the left right brain interaction the dominant side in order to achieve the one functional outcome suitable to the environment may have the preference of action.  Like the elephant's trunk specialization is needed for complex tasks so there is no need for the silent hemisphere to learn the task for itself. However in the split brain patient the silent hemisphere might have a greater independence and start to perceive the environment on it's own.

Still haven't bought his book.  Maybe today

A slap from left to right

Facial droop

In working with stroke patients one of the most obvious symptoms is facial droop on one side. Often swallowing is also affected.  If there is a common drive for this musculature and it was the only drive that mattered then facial droop or swallowing problems should not be seen if the vascular accident is in the non dominant hemisphere.  However I don't think that is the case.

In my own older movements of the left face, throat, sublingual musculature and tongue I do think that they are and were left hemisphere dominant (right side of face). My newer movements that feel strange and left sided are I think right hemisphere dominant. So back to the original point even if there is a common drive as referenced in the link below it can not be the only input that matters or there would not be seen the facial droop or swallowing problems expressed on the non dominant side.

How can I rectify the two ideas? It suggests to me that learned behaviors have a role and can be dominant over the left right wiring system. Does the common drive ladder itself over the input from the nondominant hemisphere?  There are weak at points in both that I do not have a good explanation for.

From my Disconnect post.

My gut feel is that my structures close to my midline are somehow more or less directed by the left hemisphere in my older more normal way of moving and still by far the usual if I am not paying attention.  In a study referred by the Doctor it suggests what I found in my own movement. (Evidence for bilateral innervation of certain homologous motoneurone pools in man L. J. Carr, Linda M. Harrison * and J. A. Stephens)

What it feels like is I have not learned to differentiate degrees of relaxation (inhibition) on my left facial, throat, sublingual musculature and the very recalcitrant left tongue. Sort of it's on or it's off in the case of a stroke, but the gradations of relaxation needed for coordination come the contralateral hemisphere.

common drive


1. Surface EMG recordings were made from left and right homologous muscle pairs in healthy adults. During each recording session subjects were requested to maintain a weak isometric contraction of both the left and right muscle. 2. Cross-correlation analysis of the two multiunit EMG recordings from each pair of muscles was performed. Central peaks of short duration (mean durations, 11.3-13.0 ms) were seen in correlograms constructed from multiunit EMG recordings obtained from left and right diaphragm, rectus abdominis and masseter muscles. No central peaks were seen in correlograms constructed from the multiunit EMG recordings from left and right upper limb muscles. 3. To investigate descending pathways to the homologous muscle pairs, the dominant motor cortex was stimulated using a focal magnetic brain stimulator whilst recording from homologous muscle pairs. 4. Following magnetic stimulation of the dominant motor cortex, a response was recorded from both right and left diaphragm, rectus abdominis and masseter muscles. In contrast, when recording from homologous upper limb muscles, a response was only seen contralateral to the side of stimulation. 5. The finding of short duration central peaks in the cross-correlograms constructed from multiunit recordings from left and right diaphragm, rectus abdominis and masseter, suggests that muscles such as these, that are normally co-activated, share a common drive. The mechanism is discussed and it is argued that the time course of the central correlogram peaks is consistent with the hypothesis that they could be produced by a common drive that arises from activity in last-order branched presynaptic fibres although presynaptic synchronization of last-order inputs is also likely to be involved. 6. The results of the magnetic stimulation experiments suggest that this common drive may involve the corticospinal tract. 7. We saw no evidence for a common drive to left and right homologous muscle pairs that may be voluntarily co-activated but often act independently.

Postural adjustments to half a head

Most of the time when I am watching the news I am trying to see the left side of the newsperson's head. Even though I can see it easier than before, when I check that against my memory image of that left newsperson it is still much easier to recall their right sided image.  The left side image is somehow incomplete. I see a head in my memory that includes all the right side and the beginning of the left at the crown and chin but by the mouth and eyes on the left a blur. When I switch to the left memory image it is much harder for me to put a reliable picture together but it is improving. Checking in on myself there is a different postural readiness to each side. In response to the right image is the normal old feel that I have had my whole life. With the left a much different still incomplete postural adjustment.

The normal right side response is much better in terms of the familiar and I have much more functional behaviors available but there is the warnings of overuse from my left lower back which seems to be on the edge of complaint. When I try and fully incorporate the left image postural adjustment the left lower back warnings quiet some but I am unable to maintain the response for a functional period.  The ability to access my left head musculature is improving and but the movements are still spastic and feel if they are fighting against resistance. The movements feel 'left' originated and are stronger than I could imagine.

More coffee please

I drink a great deal of coffee. It's always nice to see a study that promotes the health benefits of coffee even though I suspect the hidden hand of "The Coffee Industry".  The No Agenda Show does a great job at looking the behind the scenes production of our news, media, and information world that we live in. I think sometimes they are way off base but almost always offer something that makes far more sense to me than what is presented in the more mainstream sources of information.

Just for kicks googled caffeine acetylcholine interactions.

Caffeine/Acetylcholine Interactions

When you sleep, a natural sedative in your brain triggers a significant decrease in the acetylcholine levels in your central nervous system, the National Institute of Mental Health explains. Apparently, this drop in acetylcholine allows your brain to form the chemical associations that give you the ability to remember the individual words in your vocabulary. According to a 2008 study published in “Behavioral Brain Research,” when you drink caffeine, it can block the activity of the sedative that lowers your acetylcholine levels and trigger a subsequent abnormal increase in your central nervous system’s acetylcholine supply.

http://www.livestrong.com/article/517368-does-caffeine-enhance-acetylcholines-effect/

Caffeine is an alkaloid with a stimulant effect in the body. It can interfere in transmissions based on acetylcholine, epinephrine, norepinephrine, serotonin, dopamine and glutamate. Clinical studies indicate that it can be involved in the slowing of Alzheimer disease pathology and some other effects. The effects are not well understood. In the present work, we focused on the question whether caffeine can inhibit acetylcholinesterase (AChE) and/or, butyrylcholinesterase (BChE), the two enzymes participating in cholinergic neurotransmission. A standard Ellman test with human AChE and BChE was done for altering concentrations of caffeine.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3676818/

Much way over my head but in moderation may be the best course.

guys with too much time on their hands video below. (I should talk and or blog)

Coffee from tap

Social Rightness

I have always referred to myself as right handed  In fact I have been very inept with my left side in a myriad of ways where the right has only been average at best.  I now believe that I am not right handed but right oriented.  I see the 'rightness' of others and relate to it. That help develop the way I use my right hand. I do not think it was set in stone but a large push in the 'right' direction

Social rightness

“The more social the animal -- where cooperation is highly valued -- the more the general population will trend toward one side,” said Abrams, an assistant professor of engineering sciences and applied mathematics at the McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science. “The most important factor for an efficient society is a high degree of cooperation. In humans, this has resulted in a right-handed majority.” -

Extreme speculation on the role of acetylcholine in my head

I have been noticing more and more micro facial movements in other people that are expressed on the right side of the head that are not expressed in others in their left side of head. This is a relatively new development for me. Sometimes the facial expressions seemingly start on the right side then seem to gravitate to the left with the left side expressed less fully. Occasionally the left expresses something different than the right. Most of the time the right seems to be the dominant player. I don't know why I could not see this before. I have the feeling that seeing the persona in other left side of head makes changes in the functional use of myself to a very limited degree but I have no idea how.

In the previous post there are several articles that mention the role of neurotransmitters in the brain of mammals and birds. Acetylcholine seems to have a role in visual discrimination and temporal changes in the brain.

These results suggest that acetylcholine serves the role of facilitating plastic changes in the sensory cortices that are necessary for an animal to refine its sensitivity to the temporal characteristics of relevant stimuli.

The role of visual cortex acetylcholine in learning to discriminate temporally modulated visual stimuli.


I wonder if by putting my attention in my left eye's positioning and to what it discriminates on the left side of others makes changes in the role of  my cortical acetylcholine use which is then expressed in a different use of my left facial and sublingual musculature control.

Just a link
"Humans have a tough enough time figuring out one another. We actually use two languages to communicate, through words and through facial expressions and sometimes they don't match."

I see the smile expressed best in the middle frame on his right side of lips third row down. My assumption is the three rows represent three levels of processing by the technique they are using.

During development of the kitten visual cortex, synaptic competition between thalamocortical afferents driven by each eye leads to synaptic rearrangements that are critical for the formation of ocular dominance columns. Deprivation of input from one eye during a critical period of cortical development interferes with these synaptic rearrangements and leads to inability of the affected eye to drive visual cortical cells even after vision has been restored

Morphogenetic roles of acetylcholine

Bestial tails

I am using the left side of my face, sublingual musculature, and throat in a seemingly more independent way from my right sided similar structures. There is more inclusion of the muscles on the left side of my head in a way that I never previously felt. However, my tongue is still the most undefined for some reason in it's left sided aspect. It often feels like it is moving in my play but then I switch to my right sided normal way of moving and it does not appear to be the same structure. I don't know why. I have been reticent to bring this point up because with a blog named My left tongue too it's sort of inherent in the name I know what I am talking about if I am correct.

I am also feeling more clearly the difference in seeing a persona existing in the left half of someone else. Again seeing someone left sided I feel changes how my body/posture relates to theirs. I normally relate right sided to right sided and when I 'see' the persona existing in the left there is a global postural shift in myself to put my left side in a subtle position of advantage.

Are there similar examples in the animal kingdom? Not exactly but maybe some hints.  Elephants that learn to lateralize trunk control to half their brain and monkeys who orofacial control is related to the Broca' area. Sea mammals that are able to stay awake with half their brains and dogs that wag their tails in different directions on how they perceive other dogs.

a few links

Whose monkey's uncle

Beached Beluga

Why do elephants have trunks

The dogs wag

Double dribblin

My daughter's boyfriend showed me a video of Steph Curry doing a two handed drill. I did not pick up on it at the time but it seems to be an ad for special training glasses. What interested me was his ability to use both his hands in completely different patterns of use. He uses both hands at different times for juggling the tennis ball and alternately dribbling the basketball. It reminds me of the two hands writing video of a girl writing two different languages at the same time.

 I often have trouble walking and chewing gum so the work on differentiating my left tongue doesn't seem to do anything for my coordination, but it does make me again wonder if my one sided dominance is a functional orientation rather than a structural impediment.


Jemblog

Baby flippin

A recent article article in Scientific American talks about the prime window in how we learn to speak. Baby talk again has it's place in developing speech in a certain time frame. What was interesting to me is the importance of social cuing in learning language. IMO I feel that the social cues on the right side of face in most people(the left visual field of the viewer) are more expressive than the left side of face(the right visual field of the viewer) which lead to a greater muscular control in my right side as a mimicker. The article talks about how infants' attention coalesce around often repeated sounds. I believe my visual attention coalesced around the right half of other's faces to the extent that I still really do not see the left half of a person's face unless I specifically look for it.

"The study provided evidence that learning for the infant brain is not a passive process. It requires human interaction-a necessity that I call "social gating"...The experience of a young child learning to talk, in fact, resembles the way birds learn song"

"These ideas about the social component of early language learning may also explain some of the difficulties encountered by infants who go on to develop such disorders such as autism. Children with autism lack basic interest in speaking. Instead they fixate on inanimate objects and fail to pay attention to social cues so essential in language learning."

'Social gating' sounds similar to open instinct to me.

A recent discussion on Democracy Now( turn off sound if not interested in discussion) has Andrew Bacevich, scholar and retired soldier, discussing recent political events. It appears evident to me that he has more visual cues displayed on the right half of his face than the left. As an infant I think there would have been more connections to be made with and mimicked that would help establish the dominance of the one cerebral hemisphere. It would also suggest that my trying to learn to perceive and use my 'left tongue' is a lot larger and probably more difficult than I had originally thought.

Antibiotics and chronic back pain

I worked in a hospital that did many complicated back surgeries. Some surgeries lasted ten hours or more then had a second procedure scheduled. Many times the operations did not seem to help in the long run.

This article on antibiotics and back pain I found interesting.

Drug addiction and connection

I am more than a bit of an introvert so engaging people has always been hard for me. It's not that I don't really like and need people, I just often feel the need for alone time.

The book Quiet is a nice exploration of the world of the introvert.


Interesting video below on some surprising facts about drug addiction


Drug addiction and connection

Left, Right Paradigm

(Politics aside) In the clip below Ralph Nader offers his views on the world but what struck me is how one sided his use of his head in communicating is.  The right eye blinks far more often and more completely, the lines on his brow much more developed on his right and his use of lips and speech more developed on the right.  In the more subjective realm his eye seems much more alive to me on his right and the whole right side appears much more empathetic to me.  Not too many years ago I would have never noticed the use of the left side of face focusing solely on his right side. I am not demeaning Ralph in any way and find him to be a very admirable man.

Ralph

Nature is nurture sometimes

Thinking about an old post.  Nature can sometimes be very cruel but when I think of the parent child interaction it is often about the developing bond between them. There has been the debate forever about nature or nurture having the greater impact on our development. An old movie The Wild Child that relates the story of a french doctor who takes a child supposedly raised in the wild and tries to civilize him. It makes more sense to me that it was an abandoned autistic child who was raised through infancy and was either lost or abandoned at a certain age. However, going down my line of thought if the child for some reason could not see the persona expressed and was unable to learn to mimic those behaviors presented what kind of child would he be?

The movements that I am developing left half of my head/ throat/ sublingual tongue have a semiglobal relationship that are too complicated for me to have consciously directed them.  I may be discovering them but I don't think I could have imagined the relationships. I am often trying to hear TV talking heads speak and attempting to make sure I mimic the words in my left tongue/sublingual musculature and throat. I think I am successful some of the time. The control that takes over my head is then different. For a long time these movements were painful but now contain a mixture of pain and a sense of tautness and fullness that was before unimaginable. They are still largely spastic and poorly controlled. If I attempt to try for too large a movement it is easy to switch back into my usual way of doing things than do what I intended. There is a true 'left' feel about them. I think what I am doing is outside normal development and in a sense will never rise to the proficiency that I achieved based on the interactions of my early nurturing.

Suffer not

I am arguing that I did not differentiate the left and right half of other people's faces as I grew up and that it was reflected in how I used myself. I saw the right side as the persona of others and I am in my movement picture right sided. A recent article on a popular science site talks about the connection of seeing and feeling pain and empathy to the other person. It does not specify any differences in the sides of the person but links the seeing and empathy.

If there is pseudoneglect of the left side of the other person's face would I have decreased developmental control of my own?  I feel in the own use of the left side of my face is largely the inability to relax what I already do.

Revising the brain

In an older post I linked a story and a video about a girl with half a brain. If she is controlling both sides with the one hemisphere it gives weight to the theory of one sided control theorized here.  I'am kind of sad that the video is gone but from what I remembered the girl displayed more normal movement on one side.  There seemed to be to be an excitatory control of the impaired side but not one where I got the sense where she could relax the muscles to make it more efficient.  There is also definite timing element that could be controlled from the one side.  I was wondering if she had to use an orthotic for the impaired lower extremity ankle control or had surgery to fuse the ankle. There are several cases with one cerebral hemisphere mostly destroyed seen fairly regularly in the news. The concluding remark is usually by a doctor/neurologist that says something like "we will have to revise our current understanding of the brain"

Makes me wonder if the lesion seen here could be thought of as an excitatory impairment only. In a sense that there is no off switch. Normally the right hemisphere would be able to control the left side ability to relax but is overwhelmed by the always on signal from the dominant side.

Half a link

• STORY HIGHLIGHTS
• Doctor: Lesion "basically took away the left side" of Michelle Mack's brain 
• Right side of her brain essentially rewired itself to take over left-side functions 
• She lost some language ability, emotional control because of the rewiring
• Mack's message to the world: "I'm normal but have special needs" 

Pseudoneglect and differentiating the left half of face

I am of the belief I never really saw the left half of people's faces. The term for this is called pseudoneglect and it is common for a right hander to pay more attention to the left half of his her visual field. (which would be the right side of someone else's face)  There are many studies showing that seeing and mimicking of others face's recreates the emotions and muscular actions in ourselves. I believe the seeing of the left half of other people's face now and the persona reflected in it allows for a greater differentiation of what I do with my left and right half of face.

If I am correct the the lateralization of the brain for speech and right handedness lies in the lack of differentiation of both perceiving others and myself. It still remains the great possibility that there are both structural and developmental aspects of the nervous system that starts and kept me on the path of not perceiving the differences.

Pseudoneglect link

Faces and emotion

A sprain a day

I played many sandlot sports growing up as a kid. There was a period where it felt like I was spraining my ankles daily. The NY Times has an article that I found interesting as to the functional cost of this minor injury. The soccer team at my college had several players that had to bandage their ankles almost into a cast to keep playing.  On a subconscious level I feel I adapted strategies to keep playing without re turning my ankle. Some of the brilliance in the work of Moshe Feldenkrais I felt was to allow safe play in many of the actions that I long forgotten or never knew.

In the extreme I often saw in the nursing homes patients who became a fall risk were then limited to the bed and wheelchair. He or she would only be allowed to transfer and walk with someone assisting. It could go rapidly downhill from there as then the patient became fearful of trying to walk and then later any mobilizing.  A 90 year old 90 pounder might be the most difficult transfer in the world if they extended backward to stay in the wheelchair at the pelvis and having a death grip on anything stable in the vicinity. Many times just rolling side to side in bed would provoke the fear response of falling and the patient would resist simply resting on either side to be changed. Nurses and staff frequently hurt their own backs helping these patients.

Occasionally I had some limited success working on the mat and having the patients coaxed gently to their stomachs. Having the orientation with the face down and trunk supported with pillows relaxed them in with the fear of falling while rolling. A patient who could not sit independently at the edge of mat because they extended backward would then would be able to sit normally without assistance. Almost all the time the improvements would be temporary as the next day the process would need to be repeated. As soon as the patient's therapy came to the end because of insurance any residual change would be lost rapidly.


Similarly with spinal cord patients their transfers would often improve after getting them prone. As most had lost control of the trunk musculature coming forward to allow for an easier transfer was scary. They needed to sense that the change in orientation could be safe  before they could allow themselves the greater control the arms and shoulders required for the loss of the trunk. It seemed cruel at times to put someone prone and have them attempt modified pushups but it was very functional in a not very apparent way to the patient. The main difference is once the patient understood the improvement they kept the functionally as compared to the nursing home patient.

To tie this in with my blog theme with most of my own patterns of movement reside in the varied subconscious decisions that either felt safer or more functional. If any approached a conscious level they were then soon forgotten after habitualization.  These preference define my posture and actions.

I'm so excited

If I only see the persona exhibited in the right half of face is that what is excited in me? I am presuming my left hemisphere

Just a link

The perception of action is associated with increased activity in motor regions, implicating such regions in the recognition, understanding and imitation of actions. We examined the possibility that perception of speech, both auditory and visual, would also result in changes in the excitability of the motor system underlying speech production. Transcranial magnetic stimulation was applied to the face area of primary motor cortex to elicit motor-evoked potentials in the lip muscles. The size of the motor-evoked potentials was compared under the following conditions: listening to speech, listening to non-verbal sounds, viewing speech-related lip movements, and viewing eye and brow movements. Compared to control conditions, listening to and viewing speech enhanced the size of the motor-evoked potential. This effect was only seen in response to stimulation of the left hemisphere; stimulation of the right hemisphere produced no changes in motor-evoked potentials in any of the conditions. In a control experiment, the size of the motor-evoked potentials elicited in the muscles of the right hand did not differ among conditions, suggesting that speech-related changes in excitability are specific to the lip muscles. These results provide evidence that both auditory and visual speech perception facilitate the excitability of the motor system involved in speech production.

I'm so excited

Why are there more blind left handers?

ABSTRACT Rates of left-handedness were compared in 1387 blind and 831 sighted children. The rate in male blind children was higher than in female blind children. The incidence of left-handedness was significantly higher in blind than in sighted children in both boys and girls. The percentages of left-handedness were 18.23% and 17.02% in male and female blind children, and 11.02% and 7.52% in male and female sighted children, respectively. It can be stated that sighting is important in the development of normal typical cerebral lateralisation or hand preference.
Left-handedness in blind and sighted children - ResearchGate. Available from: http://www.researchgate.net/publication/23786251_Left-handedness_in_blind_and_sighted_children [accessed Sep 11, 2015].

Disconnect

In the video by Dr. Derakhshan from his very interesting site  Mimicking Man  there is a demonstration of a patient with spasticity to the left arm with ipsilateral left hemisphere lesions. If we are wired simply as the right hemisphere controls only the left side of the body then and the left hemisphere controls only the right then there should not spasticity on the same side. His theory of the one directionality of the corpus callosum could explain the spasticity in the left if the dominant left hemisphere (my assumption)has a executive command for both and the lesion is in the specific area where it relates to control solely of the left arm. There appears to be some transient improvement in the movement of the left arm after he manipulates the right.

In the work with my left tongue there is and has been a feel that my usual mode of movement is more under control of what I assume to be my left hemisphere. It is commonly accepted the tongue as a whole should be half left and half right corresponding contralaterally.  I have been working on trying to accentuate the ability of my left tongue throat musculature to be more independent which I have been messing around with the last 5 years or so.

The new movements that I am feel are mainly in the sub-lingual region when I try to access my left tongue/throat/face.. The 'left tongue movement is extremely tiny and often I am unclear if I am really moving it. However the sublingual region extending to below the hyoid even though small visibly feels much larger. The left lower face including left lips now are cooperating in a different way when I attempt to talk from the left side. The movements feel somewhat spastic and as if I am pushing through resistance. If I expand the area that I pay attention to, the spine and skull have a different sense of movement and orientation. There is some sense that I have to reorient what the right side musculature does to allow the left to be put in slight position of advantage. In kinesiology we are taught the lengthened position of the muscles are more advantageous than the ones at end range. With many of my right sided movements I feel my left has more of a stabilizing role where the right is given a position where it has relatively more freedom even before the movement is originated.

My gut feel is that my structures close to my midline are somehow more or less directed by the left hemisphere in my older more normal way of moving and still by far the usual if I am not paying attention.  In a study referred by the Doctor it suggests what I found in my own movement. (Evidence for bilateral innervation of certain homologous motoneurone pools in man L. J. Carr, Linda M. Harrison * and J. A. Stephens)

 Some significant quotes the first of which relates to the muscles of the more distal arms"This lack of a common drive to these co-contracting muscles is presumably commensurate with the independent control of the two arms by the central nervous system." and the following opposite behavior by the muscles closer to the midline "Cross-correlation analysis suggests that the left and right diaphragm, rectus abdominis and masseter muscles each share a common drive. As argued above, this drive probably comprises activity in last-order branched fibres and presynaptic synchronization. Focal magnetic stimulation of the motor cortex produced bilateral responses in these homologous muscle pairs. For the rectus abdominis and masseter muscle pairs, the latencies and sizes of these ipsilateral and contralateral responses were not significantly different. Taken together with the results of the cross-correlation analysis for these two muscle pairs, the results suggest that corticospinal fibres may provide the common drive to the left and right motoneurone pools. This common drive may arise from activity in corticospinal fibres that branch and supply the left and right motoneurone pools and from activity in corticospinal tract cells whose activity is synchronized at the cortical level."  Much in the study is far above what I currently understand.

I have referred to the pelvic clock exercise by Moshe Feldenkrais before where over time and slow movements I learned the left lower quadrant of my stomach muscles never relaxed during the exercise until I learned how. If one lays on one's back and pretend one is laying on a clock with the center of the face under the middle of the sacrum one rolls the sacrum up to 12:00 and down to 6:00. The outside left in the middle is 3:00 and 9:00 is the outside right. To make the movement the more easier and pleasurable I had to come to the realization that I never relaxed the muscles of left lower quadrant musculature as the right upper contracted. In a sense fighting myself in doing the circle of the left lower quadrant. I could do the movement but with a sense of irritation and being rushed. Bringing that sense to the throat region,  I could not separate in my mind what the left tongue/sub-lingual/face musculature does compared to the right. When I sense the the throat, tongue musculature I get a feel it is the most known but least accessible to differentiate in terms of movement. What is suggested by the Dr. Derakshan is that the control of the non dominant hemisphere from the dominant is always excitatory never inhibitive(relaxative).

However something as distal as my left hand should independent according to my model and from my understanding of the above study that he references in his article. There may be an executive timing motor planning issue directed from the left hemisphere that I can not rule out or feel, but the spasticity in the hand in the Dr's video suggest far more than that to me.

How can I  can account for the difference? There is a theory about Kernohan's notch which the Doctor is well aware of and discounts.  So there is a disconnect between what he is saying and I am feeling but there is also a large overlap as well. I can not account for the discrepancy in timing of attempted simultaneously movements. His idea the role of the non-dominant eye expanding the field of the dominant but not consciously seeing  also corresponds to what I sense, but I do not think it is fixed in stone  His study is scientifically based although not well accepted as far as I know. Mine is neither.

Split Pitt

Small post from this site. It shows Brad Pitt making large moves to the left and right that demonstrates the additional time that he uses to move to the nondominant side and the delay that happens as the signal is having to travel through the corpus callosum has to travel the further difference to the non dominant side.

However how about this gal?  I assume she is using each hemisphere in their own direct path. In playing the violin or other complex activities the dominant side may be the executor of the timing but there would seem to me the independence of the complex movements for each.

A different link from the site I found the following quote, " On the other hand, we have no choice as to the hemisphere with which we speak."  It is a very interesting read for me as it aptly demonstrates the discrepancy that I am finding in my left and right side. However it would lead to the conclusion that it is impossible to talk with the left tongue. My belief is that is the the usual but not always the possible. What is lacking in my opinion is the ability to differentiate between the left and right structures because of the complexities of the actions as most of the neural development happens prior to the awareness needed to examine such activity.

Separate but unequal

I have been thinking which is always dangerous when one has a limited capacity to do so, but I still have plenty of discrepancies in my thoughts about the left tongue. If I am correct that the left tongue/sublingual/face/eye exists in a separate but accessible mode from my usual right dominant side then the explanation of why I had no knowledge of it until after I started looking for it is still lacking. Some options might be

• I am wrong
• The right side inhibits perception of the possibility of left side dominance
• There is cooperation between the right and left to achieve one functional outcome.
• The left side never developed
• I am a creature of habit
• Structures of the brain are organized to lead to one side dominance
• It is simply a lack of being able to differentiate between the left and right

I don't think it is possible for me to come to any conclusions on which is more correct after I throw out the first option. In fact I don't think I will be able to resolve anything with the resources I have. However I can continue to play with trying to enhance the separate but unequal left side use of myself.

late edit  Just reading this study where the author suggests that there is a one way directional transfer of information form the corpus callosum from dominant to non dominant side. A couple of interesting quote

Similarly, when viewing a target in the middle of our view, vast majority of right handed people will initiate a search to the left of the midline, focusing slightly to the left of the middle of a word target, ... The twin phenomena mentioned above are based on the fact that the interhemispheric traffic, underpinning laterality of motor control, is one‐way (from the major to the minor hemisphere, as here defined)and that the nature of signals employed for the purpose of activating the nondominant side is purely excitatory


Link to site

The non dominant left eye of Horus

It is still remarkable to me that I do not see the left half of a person's face the way I see the right half. Normally when I look at another face I feel I see right eye to right eye and communicate that way. I see the persona exhibited on the right side and when I check my memory of the person's face it is oriented in the same perspective.. The left side of the face is somehow incomplete. If I stare at he left side of the face I see it but unless there is something remarkable the picture in my mind is incomplete.

When I deliberately try and see with my attention in my left eye to the other person left eye I often do not see the persona in the left half of face. I have to take more time and deliberately scan the left half for much more time and frequently I am not successful. I have to double check that I do just take the right sided image and am substituting for what I see in the left.

Reading a blog recently a poster mentioned that her dominated eye sees in color while her non dominant eye does not. She sees in color normally and from what I gather has to shut her dominant eye to determine that she does not see in color with her non dominant eye. Googling that information linked me to this study. It is suggested that the DE (dominant eye) determines what is seen and probably inhibits what the NDE (non dominant eye) sees in terms of color.

CONCLUSION

The color vision discrimination performance ability was found prominent for DE. This superiority was attributed to higher sensitivity of the r/g local color spectral region. We conclude that DE has priority in r/g color spectral region, probably including inhibition of NDE.

It is suggested in this article describing the eyes of Horus of a difference in the left and right eye meaning,  It comes down in the usual manner of the popular mythology of male/female difference. However what if I look at it from the perspective of dominant/nondominant there is more of an active and passive component.

Together, the eyes represent the whole of the universe, a concept similar to that of the Taoist Yin-yang symbol. Spiritually, the right eye reflects solar, masculine energy, as well as reason and mathematics. The left eye reflects fluid, feminine, lunar energy, and rules intuition and magick. Together, they represent the combined,transcendent power of Horus.

Hesitating to jumping to conclusions

In playing with the left tongue/sublingual musculature I often find the movement does not feel to be fully under my control. Or more to the fact control that I am use to. I can go to the place where I can start playing with the left tongue but the amount of involvement that happens feels to be larger than I intend. There is often a spasticity involved and I unable to gradate the amount of effort.  I wonder what process going on in my brain kept me from experiencing and feeling these movements before. The most obvious answer is I am deluding myself now. However if I throw out that conclusion then there may have been some sort of inhibitory process preventing the left sided control.

Watching this video on children with Tourette's what I am struck is with how normal they are besides the displays of their 'disease'. Can it be that the fault of their disease is one of losing inhibition on the non dominant side. It would suggest to me that we have two separate brains with one being socialised and the other not. For most of us the non socialised side does not express itself because it is not needed in the way we perceive the world and we have developed some inhibitory component to keep the silence.

What argues against what I am saying is the bilateralism of the expressions of movement. My thoughts would make more sense if we only saw the movements on the non dominant side. I have tried to watch the faces to see if I could tell any switch in what I perceived to be the 'persona' but have not been able to distinguish any differences. It is interesting that there is some association with being left handed but overall I cannot jump to any conclusion.

Talent and Deficit in Left-Handedness

Just a link.

Since the mid-nineteenth century, most researchers have assumed that left-handers are right-brained in terms of both motor and language function. That is, they have believed that given the contralateral nature of brain/side function—that the right side of the body is controlled by the left cerebral hemisphere and vice versa—left-handers would be right-brained for language. This is not so. Imaging studies reveal that only 18 percent of left-handers are localized to the right hemisphere for language and speech, while 12 percent are bilateral, having language in both hemispheres. Thus, for 70 percent, language and speech are located in the left hemisphere. Complicating matters, 5 percent of right-handers also have right-hemisphere language dominance, with 95 percent being left-hemisphere dominant.  - See more at: http://www.emory.edu/ACAD_EXCHANGE/issues/2012/spring/stories/kushner/index.html#sthash.Bns7Rbbo.dpuf