@article {12814, title = {Chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes) precentral corticospinal system asymmetry and handedness: a diffusion magnetic resonance imaging study.}, journal = {PLoS One}, volume = {5}, number = {9}, year = {2010}, note = {

PLoS One.\ 2010 Sep 21;5(9):e12886. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0012886.

}, pages = {e12886}, publisher = {United States}, abstract = {

BACKGROUND: Most humans are right handed, and most humans exhibit left-right asymmetries of the precentral corticospinal system. Recent studies indicate that chimpanzees also show a population-level right-handed bias, although it is less strong than in humans. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: We used in vivo diffusion-weighted and T1-weighted magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to study the relationship between the corticospinal tract (CST) and handedness in 36 adult female chimpanzees. Chimpanzees exhibited a hemispheric bias in fractional anisotropy (FA, left\>right) and mean diffusivity (MD, right\>left) of the CST, and the left CST was centered more posteriorly than the right. Handedness correlated with central sulcus depth, but not with FA or MD. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: These anatomical results are qualitatively similar to those reported in humans, despite the differences in handedness. The existence of a left\>right FA, right\>left MD bias in the corticospinal tract that does not correlate with handedness, a result also reported in some human studies, suggests that at least some of the structural asymmetries of the corticospinal system are not exclusively related to laterality of hand preference.

}, url = {http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20877630}, author = {Li, L and Preuss, TM and Rilling, JK and Hopkins, WD and Glasser, MF and Kumar, B and Nana, R and Zhang, X and Hu, X} }