Elevated Levels of Atypical Handedness in Autism: Meta-Analyses

Markou, Paraskevi; Ahtam, Banu; Παπαδάτου-Παστού, Μαριέττα

doi:10.1007/s11065-017-9354-4

Cited by 112 publications

(101 citation statements)

References 141 publications

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“…Importantly, large-scale, highly-powered meta-analyses can help address the reproducibility issues that are at the forefront of scientific discussion within psychological research (e.g., Open Science Collaboration, 2015). Indeed, a number of publications have recently used meta-analysis to summarize the field of handedness (e.g., Ntolka & Papadatou-Pastou, 2018;Markou, Ahtam, & Papadatou-Pastou, 2017; see also Papadatou-Pastou, 2018).…”

Section: Human Handedness: a Meta-analysismentioning

confidence: 99%

Human handedness: A meta-analysis

Παπαδάτου-Παστού¹,

Ntolka²,

Schmitz³

et al. 2019

Preprint

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Across time and place, right hand preference has been the norm, but what is the precise prevalence of left- and right-handedness? Frequency of left-handedness has shaped and underpinned different fields of research, from cognitive neuroscience to human evolution, but reliable distributional estimates are still lacking. While hundreds of empirical studies have assessed handedness, a large-scale, comprehensive review of the prevalence of handedness and the factors which moderate it, is currently missing. Here, we report five meta-analyses on hand preference for different manual tasks and show that left-handedness prevalence lies between 9.3% (using the most stringent criterion of left-handedness) to 18.1% (using the most lenient criterion of non-right-handedness), with the best overall estimate being 10.6% (10.4% when excluding studies assessing elite athletes’ handedness). Handedness variability depends on (a) study characteristics, namely year of publication and ways to measure and classify handedness, and (b) participant characteristics, namely sex and ancestry. Our analysis identifies the role of moderators which require taking into account in future studies on handedness and hemispheric asymmetries. We argue that the same evolutionary mechanisms should apply across geographical regions to maintain the roughly 1:10 ratio, while cultural factors, such as pressure against left-hand use, moderate the magnitude of the prevalence of left-handedness. Although handedness appears as a straightforward trait, there is no universal agreement on how to assess it. Therefore, we urge researchers to fully report study and participant characteristics as well as the detailed procedure by which handedness was assessed and make raw data publicly available.

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Section: Human Handedness: a Meta-analysismentioning

confidence: 99%

Human handedness: A meta-analysis

Παπαδάτου-Παστού¹,

Ntolka²,

Schmitz³

et al. 2019

Preprint

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“…Resting state functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) data have also shown a generally rightward shift of asymmetry involving various functional networks of brain regions (15). In addition, people with ASD have a higher rate of left-handedness than the general population (14,16,17). Furthermore, an electroencephalography study reported that infants at high risk for ASD showed more rightward than leftward frontal alpha asymmetry at rest (18).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Altered structural brain asymmetry in autism spectrum disorder: large-scale analysis via the ENIGMA Consortium

Postema

Rooij²,

Anagnostou

et al. 2019

Preprint

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Word count abstract: 249Word count main text: 5,660 Number of figures: 1 Number of tables: 1Supplemental information: yes 5 Abstract Background: Left-right asymmetry is an important organizing feature of the healthy brain.Various studies have reported altered structural brain asymmetry in autism spectrum disorder (ASD). However, findings have been inconsistent, likely due to limited sample sizes and low statistical power. Methods:We investigated 1,774 subjects with ASD and 1,809 controls, from 54 datasets, for differences in the asymmetry of thickness and surface area of 34 cerebral cortical regions. We also examined global hemispheric measures of cortical thickness and area asymmetry, and volumetric asymmetries of subcortical structures. Data were obtained via the ASD Working Group of the ENIGMA (Enhancing NeuroImaging Genetics through Meta-Analysis) consortium. T1-weighted MRI data were processed with a single protocol using FreeSurfer and the Desikan-Killiany atlas.Results: ASD was significantly associated with reduced leftward asymmetry of total hemispheric average cortical thickness, compared to controls. Eight regional thickness asymmetries, distributed over the cortex, also showed significant associations with diagnosis after correction for multiple comparisons, for which asymmetry was again generally lower in ASD versus controls. In addition, the medial orbitofrontal surface area was less rightward asymmetric in ASD than controls, and the putamen volume was more leftward asymmetric in ASD than controls. The largest effect size had Cohen's d = 0.15. Most effects did not depend on age, sex, IQ, or disorder severity.

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“…For example, personality traits and cognitive skills have been claimed to associate with handedness (Peterson and Lansky, 1977;Sartarelli, 2016). The prevalence of non-right-handedness has also been found to be increased in people with various cognitive or psychiatric disorders (Deep-Soboslay et al, 2010;Markou et al, 2017).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A large-scale population study of early life factors influencing left-handedness

Kovel

Carrión-Castillo

Francks

2018

Preprint

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Running Title: Handedness and early life factors in the UK Biobank AbstractHand preference is a conspicuous variation in human behaviour, with a worldwide proportion of around 90% of people preferring to use the right hand for many tasks, and 10% the left hand. As the developmental foundations of hand preference occur in utero, with further establishment within the first two years of life, prenatal and early-life factors are likely to play a role. Various, often related, factors have been studied in the past, but often in small samples, or samples with biased selection schemes. We used the large, general population cohort of the UK biobank (~500,000 participants) to study possible relations between early life factors and adult hand preference. The probability of being left-handed was affected by the year and location of birth, birthweight, being part of a multiple birth, season of birth, breastfeeding, as well as sex, with each effect remaining significant after accounting for all others. Maternal smoking showed no association with handedness. Analysis of genome-wide polymorphism data indicated a tentative genetic correlation between handedness and birth-weight, which was opposite to their overall phenotypic correlation. However, the total effect on handedness of all these factors was very small. Therefore other, unknown effects must be involved, including possible environmental factors, and/or random developmental variation with respect to the left-right formation of the embryonic brain.

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Elevated Levels of Atypical Handedness in Autism: Meta-Analyses

Cited by 112 publications

References 141 publications

Human handedness: A meta-analysis

Human handedness: A meta-analysis

Altered structural brain asymmetry in autism spectrum disorder: large-scale analysis via the ENIGMA Consortium

A large-scale population study of early life factors influencing left-handedness

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