Are you 'right-brained' and creative or 'leftbrained' and logical?

You're neither, claims study, as link between brain sides and personality are nonsense
Long been thought that people are governed by right or left side of brain Creative and intuitive people were thought to be 'right-sided' and logical, more objective people were thought to be 'left-sided' But new study found that while different sides of the brain are responsible for certain skills and body processes, people do not have a dominant side
By Rachel Reilly PUBLISHED: 12:34 GMT, 16 August 2013 | UPDATED: 13:24 GMT, 16 August 2013

169 shares 17 View comments Its

a long held belief that people are either right-brained or left-brained and in turn either creative or logical.

But the theory that our brain has a dominant side that governs out traits what we are interested in, what are skills tend to be - is nonsense, according to new research. Neuroscientists have used brain imaging to prove that while the brain does use different sides to carry out certain functions, there is no one governing side.

The orange shaded areas show the part of the brain in the left and right hemisphere responsible for moving this patient's hand. While personality may not be governed by brain sides, certain bodily functions are

For years in popular culture, the terms left-brained and right-brained have come to refer to personality types, with an assumption that some people use the right side of their brain more, while some use the left side more.

SO WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE RIGHT AND LEFT SIDE OF THE BRAIN?
Certain bodily functions are assigned to either the right or left side of the brain. The brain's right hemisphere controls the muscles on the left side of the body, while the left hemisphere controls the muscles on the right side of the body. In general, the left hemisphere is dominant in language: processing what you hear and handling most of the duties of speaking. It's also in charge of carrying out logic and exact mathematical computations. When you need to retrieve a fact, your left brain pulls it from your memory. The right hemisphere is mainly in charge of spatial abilities, face recognition and processing music. It performs some maths, but only rough estimations and comparisons. The brain's right side also helps us to comprehend visual imagery and make sense of what we see. It plays a role in language, particularly in interpreting context and a person's tone. But following a two-year study, University of Utah researchers have debunked the myth by identifying specific networks in the left and right brain that process lateralised functions.

Lateralisation of brain function refers to certain mental processes that are specialised to one of the brains left or right hemispheres. The brain's right hemisphere controls the muscles on the left side of the body, while the left hemisphere controls the muscles on the right side of the body. In general, the left hemisphere is dominant in language: processing what you hear and handling most of the duties of speaking. It's also in charge of carrying out logic and exact mathematical computations. When you need to retrieve a fact, your left brain pulls it from your memory. The right hemisphere is mainly in charge of spatial abilities, face recognition and processing music. It performs some maths, but only rough estimations and comparisons. The brain's right side also helps us to comprehend visual imagery and make sense of what we see. It plays a role in language, particularly in interpreting context and a person's tone. During the course of the study, researchers analysed resting MRI brain scans of 1,011 people between the ages of seven and 29.

Creative: It has long been believed that people who are artistic and have a dominant right side of the brain

By monitoring brain activity, the scientists were able to correlate brain activity in one region of the brain compared to another. In each person, they studied functional lateralisation of the brain, measured 7,000 brain regions and examined which regions of the brain were more lateralised. They looked for connections - or all of the possible combinations of brain regions - and added up the number of connections for each brain region that was left-lateralised or right-lateralised.

They found no evidence that individuals use their left-brain network or right-brain network more often.

Those who are more adept at mathematics and logical pursuits were thought to have a brain that was governed by its left side

Its absolutely true that some brain functions occur in one or the other side of the brain. Language tends to be on the left, attention more on the right. But people dont tend to have a stronger left or right-sided brain network. It seems to be determined more connection by connection, said Dr Jeff Anderson, lead author of the study. If you have a connection that is strongly left-lateralised, it relates to other strongly lateralised connection only if both sets of connections have a brain region in common, said Nielsen. The experts said that the results of the study are groundbreaking, as they may change the way people think about the old right-brain versus left-brain theory. The study is published in the journal PLOS ONE this month.

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Comments (17)
Newest Oldest Best rated Worst rated View all Old news but hopefully will put an end to all those NLP snake oil salesman who have been harping on about left and right brain functions for years in their corporate training, self-betterment twaddle.. - Twinklethecat , Ipswich, United Kingdom, 16/8/2013 16:35 Perhaps we read different articles, but doesn't this article state that the left and right hemispheres of the brain DO have different functions, and that a particular individual DOESN'T HAVE A DOMINANT HEMISPHERE? How did you get from reading this article to bringing NLP into it? - LimeyBob , Cardiff, 16/8/2013 18:30 Click to rate Report abuse New research will disprove this again next week. - Rob , Bicknacre, United Kingdom, 16/8/2013 18:19 Click to rate Report abuse if this is true then David Cameron must be middle brained as hes a idiot. - ray , none, 16/8/2013 17:28 Click to rate Report abuse Your comments:-----"Academic research concludes that academic research is nonsense? Result!" - gerryO , Cambridge, United Kingdom, 16/8/2013 15:22 ------ 'Fraid not gerryO - academic research has never claimed the 'right/left brain dominance/personality' thing: that was always based on a new-agey misunderstanding of what we do know about which parts of the brain seem to be involved in what sorts of tasks. That said, academic research disproves other academic research all the time, so there are actually lots of 'results!' ;-) - Nucular , Cambridgeshire, United Kingdom, 16/8/2013 17:10 Click to rate Report abuse Old news but hopefully will put an end to all those NLP snake oil salesman who have been harping on about left and right brain functions for years in their corporate training, self-betterment twaddle.. - Twinklethecat , Ipswich, United Kingdom, 16/8/2013 16:35 Click to rate Rating 10 Rating 4 Rating 4 Rating 1 Rating (0)

Report abuse I'm creative and intuitive but also logical and practical so I guess I use both sides of my brain. What's more I can multi task. So what does all that prove, besides the fact that I'm a woman? - RosyKnight , Sheffield, 16/8/2013 16:07 Click to rate Report abuse I have had brain surgery and am also currently suffering from neuroligical condition posdible m.s. I had surgery on left side 18 years ago and was yold then that as I am right handed I would suffer worse than if I was left with short term memory as surgery was on left side. I now have a large lesion on left side of hippocampus that was remaining and eventually my left side has took over as I couldnt rememberr anything from one day to next for months. - Jo , London, United Kingdom, 16/8/2013 15:50 Click to rate Report abuse They didn't test any dyslexics then ! - Ann , Fenelon Falls, 16/8/2013 15:22 Click to rate Report abuse Academic research concludes that academic research is nonsense? Result! - gerryO , Cambridge, United Kingdom, 16/8/2013 15:22 Click to rate Report abuse I am left thinking the results of this study cannot be right. - Lee , London, 16/8/2013 15:07 Click to rate Report abuse Share this comment The views expressed in the contents above are those of our users and do not necessarily reflect the views of MailOnline. Rating 36 Rating 8 Rating 2 Rating (0) Rating 2

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