Are you 'right-brained' and creative or 'left-brained' and logical? You're neither, claims study, as link between brain sides and personality are nonsense Long been thought that people are governed by right or left side of brain Creative and intuitive people were thought to be 'right-sided' and logical, more objective people were thought to be 'left-sided' But new study found that while different sides of the brain are responsible for certain skills and body processes, people do not have a dominant side It's a long held belief that people are either right-brained or left-brained and in turn either creative or logical. But the theory that our brain has a dominant side that governs out traits - what we are interested in, what are skills tend to be - is nonsense, according to new research. Neuroscientists have used brain imaging to prove that while the brain does use different sides to carry out certain functions, there is no one governing side. The orange shaded areas show the part of the brain in the left and right hemisphere responsible for moving this patient's hand. While personality may not be governed by brain sides, certain bodily functions are For years in popular culture, the terms "left-brained" and "right-brained" have come to refer to personality types, with an assumption that some people use the right side of their brain more, while some use the left side more. Certain bodily functions are assigned to either the right or left side of the brain. The brain's right hemisphere controls the muscles on the left side of the body, while the left hemisphere controls the muscles on the right side of the body. In general, the left hemisphere is dominant in language: processing what you hear and handling most of the duties of speaking. It's also in charge of carrying out logic and exact mathematical computations. When you need to retrieve a fact, your left brain pulls it from your memory. The right hemisphere is mainly in charge of spatial abilities, face recognition and processing music. It performs some maths, but only rough estimations and comparisons. The brain's right side also helps us to comprehend visual imagery and make sense of what we see. It plays a role in language, particularly in interpreting context and a person's tone. But following a two-year study, University of Utah researchers have debunked the myth by identifying specific networks in the left and right brain that process lateralised functions. Lateralisation of brain function refers to certain mental processes that are specialised to one of the brain's left or right hemispheres. During the course of the study, researchers analysed resting MRI brain scans of 1,011 people between the ages of seven and 29. Creative: It has long been believed that people who are artistic and have a dominant right side of the brain By monitoring brain activity, the scientists were able to correlate brain activity in one region of the brain compared to another. In each person, they studied functional lateralisation of the brain, measured 7,000 brain regions and examined which regions of the brain were more lateralised. They looked for connections - or all of the possible combinations of brain regions - and added up the number of connections for each brain region that was left-lateralised or right-lateralised. They found no evidence that individuals use their left-brain network or right-brain network more often. Those who are more adept at mathematics and logical pursuits were thought to have a brain that was governed by its left side It's absolutely true that some brain functions occur in one or the other side of the brain. Language tends to be on the left, attention more on the right. But people don't tend to have a stronger left or right-sided brain network. "It seems to be determined more connection by connection," said Dr Jeff Anderson, lead author of the study. "If you have a connection that is strongly left-lateralised, it relates to other strongly lateralised connection only if both sets of connections have a brain region in common," said Nielsen. The experts said that the results of the study are "groundbreaking," as they may change the way people think about the old right-brain versus left-brain theory. The study is published in the journal PLOS ONE this month.