Abstract
Asymmetry has been proved to exist in the human brain structure, function and behavior. Most of the existing brain asymmetry findings are originated from the western populations, while studies about the brain structural and functional asymmetries in East Asians are limited. Extensive evidence suggested that cultural differences, e.g. education and language, may lead to differences in brain structure and function between races. Therefore, we hypothesized that differences in brain structural asymmetries exist between East Asians and Westerners. In this study, we performed a comprehensive surface-based morphometric (SBM) analysis of brain asymmetries in cortical thickness, volume and surface area in two well-matched groups of right-handed, Chinese (n = 45) and Caucasian (n = 45) young male adults (age = 22–29 years). Our results showed consistent inter-hemispheric asymmetries in the three brain morphological measures in multiple brain regions in the Chinese young adults, including the temporal, frontal, parietal, occipital, insular cortices and the cingulate gyrus. Comparing with the Caucasians, the Chinese group showed greater structural asymmetry in the frontal, temporal, occipital and insular cortices, and smaller asymmetry in the parietal cortex and cingulate gyrus. These findings could provide a new neuroanatomical basis for understanding the distinctions between East Asian and Caucasian in brain functional lateralization.
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This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 31872802, 81301280, 81201144, 81501620), China Scholarship Council (No. 201506225068), Specialized Research Fund for the Doctoral Program of Higher Education of China (No.20120131120043), Major Scientific and Technological Innovation Project of Shandong Province (No.2017CXGC1501), Postdoctoral Science Foundation of China (2015 M582098), Key Research Development Program of Shandong Province (2017GSF218077), Shandong Provincial Medical and Health Science and Technology Development program (2015WS0177,2106WS0435) and The Fundamental Research Funds of Shandong University (No.2015JC009).
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Lou, Y., Zhao, L., Yu, S. et al. Brain asymmetry differences between Chinese and Caucasian populations: a surface-based morphometric comparison study. Brain Imaging and Behavior 14, 2323–2332 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11682-019-00184-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11682-019-00184-7