Lateralization in the Nervous System

554 Pages·1977·10.443 MB·English

by  Stevan Harnad (Eds.)

LATERALIZATION
IN THE
NERVOUS SYSTEM
EDITED BY
STEVAN HARNAD
Department of Psychiatry
College of Medicine and Dentistry
of New Jersey
Rutgers Medical School
Piscataway, New Jersey
ROBERT W. DOTY LEONIDE GOLDSTEIN
Center for Brain Research Department of Psychiatry
University of Rochester College of Medicine and Dentistry
Rochester, New York of New Jersey
Rutgers Medical School
Piscataway, New Jersey
JULIAN JAYNES GEORGE KRAUTHAMER
Department of Psychology Department of Anatomy
Princeton University College of Medicine and Dentistry
Princeton, New Jersey of New Jersey
Rutgers Medical School
Piscataway, New Jersey
ACADEMIC PRESS New York San Francisco London 1977
A Subsidiary of Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Publishers
COPYRIGHT © 1977, BY ACADEMIC PRESS, INC.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
NO PART OF THIS PUBLICATION MAY BE REPRODUCED OR
TRANSMITTED IN ANY FORM OR BY ANY MEANS, ELECTRONIC
OR MECHANICAL, INCLUDING PHOTOCOPY, RECOKDING, OR ANY
INFORMATION STORAGE AND RETRIEVAL SYSTEM, WITHOUT
PERMISSION IN WRITING FROM THE PUBLISHER.
ACADEMIC PRESS, INC.
Ill Fifth Avenue, New York, New York 10003
United Kingdom Edition published by
ACADEMIC PRESS, INC. (LONDON) LTD.
24/28 Oval Road. London NW1
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Main entry under title:
Lateralization in the nervous system.
Includes bibliographies and indexes.
1. Cerebral dominance. i. Harnad, Stevan R.
QP385.5.L37 591.1#88 76^7014
ISBN 0-12-325750-6
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
79 80 81 82 9 8 7 6 5 4 3
LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS
Numbers in parentheses indicate the pages on which the authors' contributions begin.
Samuel W. Anderson (403), Department of Communication Sciences, New York
State Psychiatric Institute, New York, New YOrk
Charles I. Berlin (303), Department of Otorhinolaryngology, Louisiana State
University Medical Center, Kresge Hearing Research Laboratory of the South,
New Orleans, Louisiana
William D. Chappie (1), Regulatory Biology, Biological Sciences Group, University
of Connecticut, Storrs, Connecticut
Robert L. Collins (137), The Jackson Laboratory, Bar Harbor, Maine
Irving S. Cooper (123), Institute of Neuroscience, St. Barnabas Hospital, Bronx,
New York
James H. Dewson, III (63), Hearing and Speech Sciences, Stanford University,
School of Medicine, Stanford, California
Emanuel Donchin (339), Department of Psychology, University of Illinois,
Champaign, Illinois
Robert W. Doty, Sr. (75, xvii), Center for Brain Research, University of Rochester,
Rochester, New York
Susan E. Folstein* (89), Edward W. Bourne Behavioral Research Laboratory, New
York Hospital-Cornell Med cal Center, Department of Psychiatry, Westchester
Division, White Plains, New York
Alcides Gadottfi (385), Department of Psychology, State University of New York,
Stony Brook, New York
Martin F. Gardiner (481), Seizure Unit, Division of Neurophysiology, Department
of Neurology, Children's Hospital Medical Center, and Harvard Medical School,
Boston, Massachusetts
Eric H. Geiger (89), Edward W. Bourne Behavioral Research Laboratory, New York
Hospital-Cornell Medical Center, Department of Psychiatry, Westerchester
Division, White Plains, New York
Stanley D. Glick (213), Department of Pharmacology, Mount Sinai School of
Medicine of the City of New York, New York, New York
Leonide Goldstein (451), College of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey-Rutgers
Medical School, Department of Psychiatry, Piscataway, New Jersey
Charles G. Gross (109), Department of Psychology, Princeton University, Princeton,
New Jersey
Raquel Gur (261), Department of Psychiatry, University of Pennsylvania School
of Medicine, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
IX
LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS
Ruben Gur (261), Department of Psychiatry, University of Pennsylvania School
of Medicine, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Charles R. Hamilton (45), Division of Biology, California Institute of Technology,
Pasadena, California
Stevan Hamad (xvii), College of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey-Rutgers
Medical School, Department of Psychiatry, Piscataway, New Jersey
Kenneth M. Heilman (285), Department of Neurology, College of Medicine,
University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida
T. P. Jerussi (213), Department of Pharmacology, Mount Sinai School of Medicine,
of the City of New York, New York, New York
Marta Kutas (339), Department of Psychology, University of Illinois, Champaign,
Illinois
Jerre Levy (195), Department of Psychology, University of Pennsylvania,
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Gregory McCarthy (339), Department of Psychology, University of Illinois,
Champaign, Illinois
Donald F. Mervis (89), Department of Anatomy, Mount Sinai School of Medicine,
of the City University of New York, New York, New York
Mortimer Mishkin (109), National Institute of Mental Health, Bethesda, Maryland
Michael Morgan (173), The Psychological Laboratory, University of Cambridge,
Cambridge, England
Judith M.Nelsen (451), College of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey-Rutgers
Medical School, Department of Psychiatry, Piscataway, New Jersey
Fernando Nottebohm (23), The Rockefeller University, New York, New York
William H. Overman, Jr. (75), Center for Brain Research, University of Rochester,
Rochester, New York
Ruth Phillips (451), College of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey-Rutgers
Medical School, Department of Psychiatry, Piscataway, New Jersey
Manuel Rik/an (123), Institute of Neuroscience, St. Barnabas, Hospital, Bronx,
New York
Steven C. Rosen (385), Department of Psychology, State University at Stony
Brook, Stony Brook, New York
Alan B. Rubens (503), University of Minnesota Medical School, Hennepin County
Medical Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota
Jeri A. Sechzer (89), Edward W. Bourne Behavioral Research Laboratory, New York
Hospital-Cornell Medical Center, Department of Psychiatry, Westchester
Division, White Plains, New York
Sally P. Springer (325), Department of Psychology, State University of New York,
Stony Brook, New York
John S. Stamm (385), Department of Psychology, State University of New York,
Stony Brook, New York
Robert W. Thatcher (429), Brain Research Laboratory, Department of Psychiatry,
New York Medical College, New York, New York
Gerald Turkewitz (251), Department of Psychology, Hunter College, City
University of New York, and Department of Pediatrics, Rose F. Kennedy
Center Albert Einstein College of Medicine, New York, New York
Donald Walter (481), Department of Physiology, and Anatomy, University of
California, Los Angeles, California
x
LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS
John M. Warren (151), Animal Behavior Laboratory, The Pennsylvania State
University, University Park, Pennsylvania
Robert T. Watson (285), Department of Neurology, The College of Medicine,
University of Florida and the Veterans Administration Hospital, Gainesville,
Florida
William G. Webster (471), Department of Psychology, Carleton University, Ottawa,
Canada
B. Zimmerberg (213), Department of Pharmacology, Mount Sinai School of
Medicine, of the City of New York, New York, New York
♦Present address: Department of Psychiatry, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland
Present address: Department of Psicologia, Universidade Federal do Para Bele*m-Para, Brazil
XI
PREFACE
That research on the many aspects of lateralization has been growing enormously
in recent years is evident from the innumerable scientific papers and n oless than 20
volumes on the topic prepared since 1962 (see the Bibliography). However, no
volume has as yet attempted to provide a thorough current perspective on the entire
spectrum of existing approaches to lateralization with the object of bringing out the
unifying themes pervading this multidisciplinary research. Review volumes have
the disadvantage of being secondary, and often quite dated, sources. Moreover, some
of this lateralization research is so recent, and originates from such disparate areas of
investigation that no one has yet had a chance to draw it together and digest it.
In the present volume, the most recent original work representing the principal
approaches to the investigation of lateralization has been assembled and organized,
with copious cross references, and an Introductory Overview to orient the reader.
Certain newer approaches, such as the investigation of turning tendencies and
electrocortical indices of hemispheric asymmetry, have been emphasized, while
other, more classical approaches, already extensively described in the literature (such
as human split-brain studies), have been given less intensive treatment. Throughout
the volume, great stress has been placed upon experimental paradigms and outcomes
that are applicable to both human and nonhuman species. Several chapters also place
brain asymmetry in context with other biological asymmetries in the quest for
general mechanisms and principles of lateralization. A variety of different perspec-
tives, environmentalist and nativist, have been brought to bear on the problem of the
inheritance, embryology and development of asymmetry. Highly suggestive inverte-
brate and avian models for lateralization are presented, and the evidence for cerebral
dominance and handedness in nonhuman species is examined. Recent work on inter-
hemispheric relations, the functions of the commissures, and on subcortical laterali-
zation is reported.
The important theme of turning tendencies and attentional asymmetries pervades
the volume, and is traced from rotation in invertebrates to lateral eye movement
correlates of personality and cognition in man. Human clinical neuropsychological
findings are presented, such as the effects of unilateral cortical and thalamic lesions
and the syndrome of unilateral neglect; more than one model for the "minimal
brain damage" syndrome in children is proposed. Cognitive asymmetries in human
information-processing are investigated via dichotic listening and tachistoscopic half-
field studies.
After an exhaustive review and critique of current research on surface electroen-
cephalographic (EEG) and event-related potential laterally in man, a series of
xiii
PREFACE
chapters report new findings from the application of these new electrographic tech-
niques to the study of asymmetries during sleep, learning, performance, and
information-processing in adults, infants, and animals.
Finally, there is a review of the gross anatomical asymmetries of the brain in
human and nonhuman species and their implications for electrophysiological studies
and hemispheric specialization.
The volume will be of interest to psychologists (physiological, cognitive, develop-
mental, and clinical), behavioral biologists, neuroscientists, neurologists, and psychi-
atrists, as well as to scholars and educators from the humanities and social sciences
who are concerned with the nature and biological bases of left-right differences in
brain, behavior, and thinking.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Volumes on lateralization, cerebral dominance, and interhemispheric relations (chronological order)
Mountcastle, V.B. (Ed.) Interhemispheric relations and cerebral dominance. Baltimore: Johns
Hopkins Press, 1962,
Hecaen, H., & de Ajuriaguerra, J. (Eds). Left-handedness: Manual superiority and cerebral
dominance. New York: Grune & Stratton, 1964
Ettlinger, G. (Ed.). Functions of the corpus ca/losum. London: Churchill, 1965.
Gazzaniga, M.S. The bisected brain. New York: Appleton, 1970
Cemacek, J., & Podvinsky, F. (Eds.). Cerebral interhemispheric relations. Bratislava: Czechoslovak
Academy of Sciences, 1972.
Dimond, S. The double brain. Edinburgh: Churchill Livingstone, 1972.
Brain Information Service Conference Report #34: Cerebral dominance. Los Angeles: UCLA
BIS/BRI, 1974.
Dimond, S. & Beaumont, J.G. (Eds.). Hemispheric function in the human brain. Springfield,
Illinois: Thomas, 1974.
Kinsbourne, M. & Smith, W.L. (Eds.). Hemispheric disconnection and cerebral function in the
human brain. London: Elek, 1974.
Schmitt, F.O., & Worden, F.G. (Eds.). Hemispheric Specialization and Interaction. In: The
neurosciences: Third study program. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1974, Pp. 3-89.
Michel, F., & Schott, B. (Eds.). Lessyndromes de disconnexion calleuses chez l'homme. Lyon:
SPCM/lmprimerie J.J., 1975.
Brain Information Service Conference Report #42: D.O. Walter, L. Rogers & J.F. Finzi-Fried
(Eds.). Conference on human brain function. Los Angeles: UCLA BIS/BRI, 1976.
Corballis, M., & Beale, I.L. The psychology of left and right. New York; Halsted, 1976.
Hamad, S.R., Steklis, H.D., & Lancaster, J.B. (Eds.). Origins and Evolution of Language and
Speech. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 280,1976.
In preparation
Kinsbourne, M. (Ed.). Asymmetrical functions of the brain. London and New York: Cambridge
University Press (1977)
Desmedt, J.E. Language and hemispheric specialization in man: Event-related cerebral potentials.
Progress in Clinical Neurophysiology Basel: Karger (1977)
Dimond, S. (Ed.). Evolution and Lateralization of the Brain. Annals of the New York Academy of
Sciences (1977).
Segalowitz, SJ. and Gruber, F. (Eds.). Language development and neurological theory. New York:
Academic Press, 1977.
Herron, J. (Ed.). The sinistral mind (in preparation).
Bogen, J.E., & Bogen, G.M. The other side of the brain (in preparation).
xiv
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This volume has grown out of a symposium on lateralization sponsored by the New Jersey Chapter of The
Society for Neuroscience at CMDNJ-Rutgers Medical School on|April|l9-21,[l975|and|organized|by|S.|H.
Not all chapters are by participants in the symposium, and most were prepared subsequently. However the
symposium itself was the occasion for the remarkable convergence from all over the country of most of the
authors represented in this volume.
Notably missing from this volume are contributions from the following symposium participants:
Roland Puccetti (Dalhousie University), that watchdog, gadfly, and kindred spirit from a more venerable
discipline, whose absence from this volume would, in a less fragmented day and age, have surely been
unthinkable. He continues to exercise, across interdisciplinary (and other) boundaries, a salutary effect upon
the minds of brain scientists by his many provocative writings and by actively participating in events such as
this one (see,e.g., Dimond, 1977; Harnad, Steklis, and Lancaster, 1976).
Marcel Kinsbourne (Toronto Hospital for Sick Children) whose spirit pervades the book, and about whose
ideas many of the contributions turn.
Daniel Gardner (Cornell Medical College) who, appropriately enough, opened this symposium on asymmetry
with a stimulating discussion of symmetry (in the buccal ganglia of Aplysia) and who, owing to our indecorous
haste to ready this timely volume, could not submit his paper in time (see Bilateral symmetry and inter-
neuronal organization in the buccal ganglia of Aplysia, Science 1971, 173, 550-553 and Journal of Neuro-
physiology, 1977, in press).
Morris Bender (Mount Sinai School of Medicine), who graciously chaired the symposium and who, out of
self-defense, declined to vouchsafe us the elaborate introduction we endeavored to prevail upon him to write.
Present in the volume but not at the symposium:
Kenneth Heilman (University of Florida College of Medicine, with co-author Robert Watson) who was invited
but could not attend at the time.
Michael Morgan (University of Cambridge) who was located much too far for us to have the temerity to invite
him to attend out of pocket, as did all the other participants.
James H. Dewson (Stanford University Medical Center) whose lateralization results did not yet exist at that
time.
We are indebted to the NIMH Interdisciplinary Research Training Program of CMDNJ-Rutgers Medical School
(Arthur Kling, Director) for helping to support the symposium. Editorial royalties from this volume will be
donated to the Society for Neuroscience (N.J. Chapter) for the purpose of encouraging future symposia.
xv
Introductory Overview
STEVAN HARNAD AND ROBERT W. DOTY, SR.
THE LATERALIZATION PROBLEM
In many respects lateralization constitutes a model problem in
the neurosciences: It has its subcellular as well as its fine and
gross anatomical aspects; it can be approached by means of elec-
trophysiological, and recently also pharmacological, techniques;
it has provided a coherent substrate for the study of important
comparative and phylogenetic issues in addition to being uniquely
amenable to investigation in man, both clinically and by non-in-
vasive psychophysiological techniques; it poses a well defined
problem in terms of its genetics and developmental biology, and
is eminently suited to research on plasticity of function; it is
rich in its behavioral superstrate, both simple and complex, and
has ramifications also in the study of perception and language
in man. In short, the lateralization problem impinges upon the
entire spectrum of brain-behavioral research from the synapse to
the sentence.
And yet in several of its manifestations it has also proved to
be singularly refractory, at least to innocent approaches. In
genetics, next to IQ, laterality probably presents some of the
most frustrating problems: so deceptively simple and seemingly
well-defined phenotypically, and yet constantly evading straight-
forward solutions, and complicated by elusive environmental ef-
fects.
The anatomical problem is much the same way. Left-right dif-
ferences appear, even across species, but they are often highly
variable, and invariably small, too small to endow with any prima
facie function. Functional studies too turn out to be dogged
with complexities. No lateralized function, language not excepted,
has turned out to be an all-or-none affair. Invariably both sides
xvi i
STEVAN HARNAD AND ROBERT W. DOTY, SR.
of the brain will exhibit it to some degree. And marked variabil-
ity, together with astonishing plasticity, make lateralization of
function almost as intractable as other classical problem of lo-
calization.
The question of origins and evolution is also still an open
one. Do animals exhibit cerebral dominance, or even handedness?
Some studies have found they do, others have found they do not.
At any rate, we are certainly far from being able to construct an
intelligible phylogenetic series, particularly as our fellow-pri-
mates seem to present some of the most ambiguous cases.
Finally, even the uniquely human and tantalizingly tangible
aspects of the lateralization problem have often proved false
friends. Despite the seemingly clearcut picture some people feel
they have of what constitute left hemisphere or right hemisphere
"modes", the new non-invasive approaches have failed to produce
dramatic insights. At best they have weakly corroborated some of
what was already known on the basis of brain damage studies, but
they have not bridged the gap between injured and intact brain
function.
So why make so much of this "model" problem which produces
such muddled results? We feel that, as is the case with most
serious branches of inquiry, the hasty, simplistic approaches had
first to be exhausted, gotten out of the way, before any real work
could begin. We have had our day in which counting the proportion
of left handers was going to tell us how laterality originated or
developed; or animals were going to be miniature replicas (or an-
titheses) of ourselves; or morphology was going to stand up and
tell us about function; or the brain was going to behave like a
static cognitive map; or a few milliseconds of reaction time, a
small percentage difference in error scores or an elusive micro-
volt or two over the scalp would sustain some Janusian fantasy we
had secretly harbored.
FUNCTIONAL LATERALIZATION IN NONHUMAN SPECIES
NEURAL CONTROL OF VOCALIZATION IN SONGBIRDS
And serious work has begun. Who can fail to be impressed by
Nottebohm's (Chapter 2, this volume) dramatic discovery of a pos-
sible "animal model" for cerebral dominance in the asymmetric
control of vocalization in several species of songbird ? His
original finding that song is severely disrupted by section of
the left but not the right hypoglossus nerve has been extended in
this chapter to nuclei higher up along the ipsilateral pathway
controlling vocalization, in particular, to the caudal portion of
the ventral hyperstriatum in the telencephalon which is dominant
on the left and involved in the learning and memory of the "en-
grams" for song. This model system also exhibits striking count-
erparts of both adult functional recovery and early hemispheric
XVIII