Although our brains are divided into two halves, they are not at all ideally equal in size and shape. And a new study explains why.
Scientists from the Max Planck Institute in Germany have found out why there is no symmetry between the two hemispheres in the human brain. Some functions of our body are processed in large part by the left hemisphere, others by the right. Researchers have discovered the hereditary prerequisites of brain asymmetry and found out how much we resemble primates because of this. At first glance, our bodies look very symmetrical. We have two arms and legs, two eyes and ears, and even the nose and mouth seem to be mirrored if separated by a line in the photo.
The two hemispheres of the brain are designed for different tasks. So, for many of us, spatial attention is processed in the right hemisphere, and the left hemisphere is responsible for speech. However, it has not yet been established how much brain asymmetry is hereditary, and how it is explained by different needs.
Scientists from Germany investigated this asymmetry in the left and right hemispheres and found the presence of subtle differences in the functional brain structure. The human brain is more asymmetrical than that of monkeys. Perhaps this asymmetry reflects both genetic and non-genetic interactions. For example, in the elderly, there is a decrease in right-sided asymmetry, which indicates slight variations throughout life.