Relative Processing Demands Influence Cerebral Laterality for Verbal-Motor Integration in Persons with Down Syndrome

The study of cerebral specialization in the Down syndrome (DS) population has revealed an anomalous pattern of organization. In particular, dichotic-listening studies have suggested a left-ear/right hemisphere dominance for speech perception, whereas motor control research has revealed a left hemisp...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Cortex 2005-02, Vol.41 (1), p.61-66
Main Authors: Heath, Matthew, Welsh, Timothy N., Simon, Dominic A., Tremblay, Luc, Elliott, Digby, Roy, Eric A.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Acoustic Stimulation
Adolescent
Adult
anomalous organization
cerebral asymmetries
Cognition - physiology
dichotic aiming
dichotic listening
Dichotic Listening Tests
Down syndrome
Down Syndrome - physiopathology
Functional Laterality - physiology
Humans
Matched-Pair Analysis
Mental Processes
Psychomotor Performance - physiology
Reaction Time - physiology
Speech Perception - physiology
verbal-motor
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Summary:The study of cerebral specialization in the Down syndrome (DS) population has revealed an anomalous pattern of organization. In particular, dichotic-listening studies have suggested a left-ear/right hemisphere dominance for speech perception, whereas motor control research has revealed a left hemisphere dominance for executive-motor control. In the present investigation, we employed a recent adaptation of the dichotic listening procedure to examine interhemispheric integration during the performance of a lateralized verbal-motor task. Specifically, using the selective dichotic-listening procedure, participants were required to complete a rapid left or right hand pointing movement to one of two pictorial icons corresponding to the word presented to their precued ear. We observed that persons with DS (N = 17) and age-matched controls (N = 35) exhibited a right-ear advantage (REA) for our dichotic-aiming task. While these results appear to contradict previous dichotic listening studies, we propose that the manifestation of a lateral ear advantage in the DS population may have more to do with the response requirements of the task than with the characteristics or complexity of the stimulus material.
ISSN:0010-9452
1973-8102
DOI:10.1016/S0010-9452(08)70178-3