The Genetic Relationship Between Handedness and Neurodevelopmental Disorders

Overview

Journal Trends Mol Med

Specialties General Medicine
Molecular Biology

Date 2013 Nov 27

PMID 24275328

Citations 57

Authors

William M Brandler

Silvia Paracchini

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Handedness and brain asymmetry have been linked to neurodevelopmental disorders such as dyslexia and schizophrenia. The genetic nature of this correlation is not understood. Recent discoveries have shown handedness is determined in part by the biological pathways that establish left/right (LR) body asymmetry during development. Cilia play a key role in this process, and candidate genes for dyslexia have also been recently shown to be involved in cilia formation. Defective cilia result not only in LR body asymmetry phenotypes but also brain midline phenotypes such as an absent corpus callosum. These findings suggest that the mechanisms for establishing LR asymmetry in the body are reused for brain midline development, which in turn influences traits such as handedness and reading ability.

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