14 DAY TRIAL // According to the conclusions of a new study, it would appear that our handedness – whether we predominately use our left or right hand – may influence the way our emotions are organized in the brain. If that is so, the treatments for conditions such as depression may have to be updated.
In severe depression patients, neural stimulation is oftentimes used as a means to promote a reduction in symptom severity. But the therapy is mostly tuned for right-handed people, so it may not have the same beneficial effects on left-handed individuals, PsychCentral reports.
The left hemisphere of the brain is known for encoding motivation, while the right hemisphere codes for withdrawal and associated motivations. At least, this is what experts thought until now. It turns out that this situation may be reversed in left-handed patients.
“We predicted this hemispheric reversal because we observed that people tend to use different hands to perform approach- and avoidance-related actions,” scientists at The New School for Social Research write in the latest issue of the peer-reviewed journal PLoS ONE.