Popular culture would have you believe that logical, methodical and analytical people are left-brain dominant, while the creative and artistic types are right-brain dominant. A new study from University of Utah neuroscientists uses brain imaging to debunk the idea that the left side of the brain controls logic and analytical thinking while the right side is responsible for creativity and thoughtfulness. Following a two-year study, University of Utah researchers have debunked that myth through identifying specific networks in the left and right brain that process lateralized functions. Lateralization of brain function means that there are certain mental processes that are mainly specialized to one of the brain's left or right hemispheres. But in an analysis of a database of resting brain scans of 1,011 people between the ages of 7 and 29, he and a team of researchers found no evidence of one side of the brain working alone more often, or people having a stronger neural network on one side over the other. In each person, they studied functional lateralization of the brain measured for thousands of brain regions -- finding no relationship that individuals preferentially use their left -brain network or right- brain network more often. "It's absolutely true that some brain functions occur in one or the other side of the brain. There is a grain of truth to it — the left side of the brain is more involved with language and the right evaluates the outside world, Anderson said. Though some connections are stronger than others, those tend to be localized rather than lateral. "It’s just one of those urban myths," said Jeff Anderson, a U. professor of radiology and lead author of the study published in the journal PLOS ONE online Thursday. The participants' scans were taken during a functional connectivity MRI analysis, meaning a participant laid in a scanner for 5 to 10 minutes while their resting brain activity was analyzed. By viewing brain activity, scientists can correlate brain activity in one region of the brain compared to another. In the study, researchers broke up the brain into 7,000 regions and examined which regions of the brain were more lateralized. 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- lateralized or right-lateralized. "Everyone should understand the personality types associated with the terminology 'left-brained' and 'right-brained' and how they relate to him or her personally; however, we just don't see patterns where the whole left-brain network is more connected or the whole right-brain network is more connected in some people.
– If you've long lauded your powerful right brain for providing you with your artistic prowess, some University of Utah researchers have bad news for you: The whole right-brain/left-brain thing isn't true. The neuroscientists analyzed 1,011 brain scans to come to their conclusion about whether people are indeed right-brain (ie, creative) or left-brain (ie, logical) dominant, and uncovered no proof that we actually use one side of our brain more heavily or have more robust neural connections there, reports the Salt Lake Tribune. To understand how the study worked, a quick science lesson/refresher: Lateralization is no myth, and refers to mental functions that largely rely on one side of the brain; for instance, speech is a mostly left-brain function, reports LiveScience. The scientists divided the brain into 7,000 regions and looked for connections. They counted the number of connections that could be described as left- or right-lateralized, and uncovered neither a preference for one side nor a stronger neural network on one side, reports Science Daily. "We just don't see patterns where the whole left-brain network is more connected, or the whole right-brain network is more connected in some people," says one of the study's authors. (Click to read about another surprising brain-related discovery.)