Genetic Factors Have No Influence on Us Being Right or Left Handed

A strong genetic determinant has no influence on humans becoming left handed or right handed, a new study has suggested

The University of Nottingham's Professor John Armour and Dr Angus Davison, in collaboration with UCL's Professor Chris McManus, conducted a twin study examining the whole genome - which contains hereditary information - of nearly 4,000 subjects from the London Twin Research Unit to compare left and right handed participants.

The study was unable to find a strong genetic factor in determining handedness.

If there was a single major genetic determination of handedness, there should be a detectable shift between left and right handed people in the frequency of variants in that part of the genome - and this isn't the case.

Professor Armour, Professor of Human Genetics at The University of Nottingham, said that there should be a detectable shift between right and left handed people because modern methods for typing genetic variation cover nearly all of the genome.

The study has been published in the journal Heredity.

Source: ANI