Cerebral Cortex Advance Access originally published online on September 29, 2006
Cerebral Cortex 2007 17(8):1757-1765; doi:10.1093/cercor/bhl086
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The Association between Handedness, Brain Asymmetries, and Corpus Callosum Size in Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes)
1 Department of Psychology, Agnes Scott College, Decatur, GA 30030, USA, 2 Division of Psychobiology, Yerkes National Primate Research Center, Atlanta, GA 30322, USA, 3 Department of Psychology, Clemson University, Clemson, SC 29634, USA
Address correspondence to Dr William Hopkins, Division of Psychobiology, Yerkes National Primate Research Center, 954 Gatewood Road, Atlanta, GA 30322, USA. Email: Lrcbh{at}rmy.emory.edu or Whopkins{at}agnesscott.edu.
It has been suggested from studies in human subjects that sex, handedness, and brain asymmetries influence variation in corpus callosum (CC) size and these differences reflect the degree of connectivity between homotopic regions of the left and right cerebral hemispheres. Here we report that handedness is associated with variation in the size of the CC in chimpanzees. We further report that variation in brain asymmetries in a cortical region homologous to Broca's area is associated with the size of the CC but differs for right- and left-handed individuals. Collectively, the results suggest that individual differences in functional and neuroanatomical asymmetries are associated with CC variation not just in humans but also in chimpanzees and therefore may reflect a common neural basis for laterality in these 2 species.
Key Words: brain asymmetry chimpanzees corpus callosum handedness