Ernesto Rogata/Alamy
Why aren’t we equally capable with our left and right sides? Wouldn’t this have given us a survival advantage?
Tony Seikel
Inkom, Idaho, US
Non-humans also demonstrate laterality of function, in which one side of the body has different “specialisations” than the other.
This lateralisation occurs because brain areas responsible for those activities are specific to one hemisphere or another. We talk about “hemispheric dominance” in the sense that, for instance, the left brain hemisphere in 85 per cent of humans governs language and fine-motor function. While one hemisphere may be dominant in a specific task, that hemisphere has…
