Summary: A new study reports unborn children can carry out asymmetric hand movements as early as 12 weeks gestation.

Source: RUB.

A preference for the left or the right hand might be traced back to that asymmetry. “These results fundamentally change our understanding of the cause of hemispheric asymmetries,” conclude the authors. The team report about their study in the journal eLife.

Preference in the womb

To date, it had been assumed that differences in gene activity of the right and left hemisphere might be responsible for a person’s handedness. A preference for moving the left or right hand develops in the womb from the eighth week of pregnancy, according to ultrasound scans carried out in the 1980s. From the 13th week of pregnancy, unborn children prefer to suck either their right or their left thumb.

Arm and hand movements are initiated via the motor cortex in the brain. It sends a corresponding signal to the spinal cord, which in turn translates the command into a motion. The motor cortex, however, is not connected to the spinal cord from the beginning. Even before the connection forms, precursors of handedness become apparent. This is why the researchers have assumed that the cause of right respective left preference must be rooted in the spinal cord rather than in the brain.

The influence of environmental factors

The researchers analysed the gene expression in the spinal cord during the eighth to twelfth week of pregnancy and detected marked right-left differences in the eighth week — in precisely those spinal cord segments that control the movements of arms and legs. Another study had shown that unborn children carry out asymmetric hand movements just as early as that.

The researchers, moreover, traced the cause of asymmetric gene activity. Epigenetic factors appear to be at the root of it, reflecting environmental influences. Those influences might, for example, lead to enzymes bonding methyl groups to the DNA, which in turn would affect and minimise the reading of genes. As this occurs to a different extent in the left and the right spinal cord, there is a difference to the activity of genes on both sides.

About this neuroscience research article

For the study, the team from Ruhr-Universität Bochum collaborated with the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics in the Netherlands as well as the Dutch Radboud University and the South-African Wellenberg Research Centre at Stellenbosch University.

Funding: The study was funded by the German Research Foundation (Gu227/16-1).

Source: Sebastian Ocklenburg – RUB

Image Source: NeuroscienceNews.com image is in the public domain.

Original Research: Full open access research for “Epigenetic regulation of lateralized fetal spinal gene expression underlies hemispheric asymmetries” by Sebastian Ocklenburg, Judith Schmitz, Zahra Moinfar, Dirk Moser, Rena Klose, Stephanie Lor, Georg Kunz, Martin Tegenthoff, Pedro Faustmann, Clyde Francks, Jörg T Epplen, Robert Kumsta, and Onur Güntürkün in eLife. Published online February 1 2017 doi:10.7554/eLife.22784

Cite This NeuroscienceNews.com Article

[cbtabs][cbtab title=”MLA”]RUB “The Reason For Our Left or Right Handedness.” NeuroscienceNews. NeuroscienceNews, 20 February 2017.

<https://neurosciencenews.com/right-left-handedness-6132/>.[/cbtab][cbtab title=”APA”]RUB (2017, February 20). The Reason For Our Left or Right Handedness. NeuroscienceNew. Retrieved February 20, 2017 from https://neurosciencenews.com/right-left-handedness-6132/[/cbtab][cbtab title=”Chicago”]RUB “The Reason For Our Left or Right Handedness.” https://neurosciencenews.com/right-left-handedness-6132/ (accessed February 20, 2017).[/cbtab][/cbtabs]

Abstract

Epigenetic regulation of lateralized fetal spinal gene expression underlies hemispheric asymmetries

Lateralization is a fundamental principle of nervous system organization but its molecular determinants are mostly unknown. In humans, asymmetric gene expression in the fetal cortex has been suggested as the molecular basis of handedness. However, human fetuses already show considerable asymmetries in arm movements before the motor cortex is functionally linked to the spinal cord, making it more likely that spinal gene expression asymmetries form the molecular basis of handedness. We analyzed genome-wide mRNA expression and DNA methylation in cervical and anterior thoracal spinal cord segments of five human fetuses and show development-dependent gene expression asymmetries. These gene expression asymmetries were epigenetically regulated by miRNA expression asymmetries in the TGF-β signaling pathway and lateralized methylation of CpG islands. Our findings suggest that molecular mechanisms for epigenetic regulation within the spinal cord constitute the starting point for handedness, implying a fundamental shift in our understanding of the ontogenesis of hemispheric asymmetries in humans.

“Epigenetic regulation of lateralized fetal spinal gene expression underlies hemispheric asymmetries” by Sebastian Ocklenburg, Judith Schmitz, Zahra Moinfar, Dirk Moser, Rena Klose, Stephanie Lor, Georg Kunz, Martin Tegenthoff, Pedro Faustmann, Clyde Francks, Jörg T Epplen, Robert Kumsta, and Onur Güntürkün in eLife. Published online February 1 2017 doi:10.7554/eLife.22784

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