WEBVTT - Can You Train Yourself to Become Ambidexterous? 0:00:01.920 --> 0:00:06.560 Welcome to brain Stuff production of I Heart Radio, Hey 0:00:06.640 --> 0:00:10.399 brain Stuff Lauren Bogelbaum. Here, the world is made up 0:00:10.400 --> 0:00:14.680 of about right handed people and ten percent left handed people. 0:00:15.320 --> 0:00:18.480 Folks who are truly ambidexterous those who use their right 0:00:18.520 --> 0:00:21.600 and left hand equally well make up a negligible sliver 0:00:21.720 --> 0:00:27.240 of the population. But is ambidexterity inherited or learned? And 0:00:27.560 --> 0:00:31.200 if learned, can it be learned as an adult? We 0:00:31.520 --> 0:00:34.920 spoke by email with Dr Sebastian Aucklenberg, a professor of 0:00:34.960 --> 0:00:39.159 psychology at Rural University in Bochum, Germany. He said a 0:00:39.200 --> 0:00:42.360 little bit of both. Handedness is determined by about twenty 0:00:42.600 --> 0:00:47.840 percent genetic factors and non genetic factors like environmental influences. 0:00:48.200 --> 0:00:50.839 It clearly runs in families, so it is somewhat inherited, 0:00:51.080 --> 0:00:54.600 but learning might also affect it. I think ambidexterity for 0:00:54.680 --> 0:00:58.160 a specific task like hitting a tennis ball with a racket, 0:00:58.320 --> 0:01:04.560 is possible, but full ambodexterity for all tasks is unlikely. Handedness, 0:01:04.720 --> 0:01:07.360 being the skill and comfort of person feels using one 0:01:07.440 --> 0:01:10.479 hand or the other, is considered a complex genetic trait, 0:01:11.000 --> 0:01:14.640 and since genes are involved, hand preference develops before a 0:01:14.640 --> 0:01:18.759 person is even born, But like other complex traits, handedness, 0:01:18.840 --> 0:01:23.880 including ambedoxterity, doesn't have a simple pattern of inheritance. Yes, 0:01:23.920 --> 0:01:26.319 there is a greater chance that children of left handed 0:01:26.360 --> 0:01:29.440 parents will also be left handed than children of rights, 0:01:29.880 --> 0:01:32.280 but remember the chance of being a lefty is just 0:01:32.319 --> 0:01:35.559 ten percent overall, so most children of lefties are still 0:01:35.640 --> 0:01:39.880 right handed, and identical twins are more likely than non 0:01:39.920 --> 0:01:42.959 identical twins to both be either right or left handed, 0:01:43.200 --> 0:01:46.960 but many of both types do have opposite hand preferences. 0:01:47.000 --> 0:01:50.080 And that's before we even talk about whether a child's 0:01:50.120 --> 0:01:53.400 handedness is allowed to develop naturally or whether parents and 0:01:53.440 --> 0:01:58.840 teachers interfere. Hand dominance typically develops around age three and 0:01:59.000 --> 0:02:01.600 is fully developed by age four to five, but it 0:02:01.640 --> 0:02:04.680 can be influenced by insisting a child uses their other 0:02:04.720 --> 0:02:09.320 hand or by happenstance. For example, when he was four 0:02:09.400 --> 0:02:13.320 years old, former Major League baseball pitcher Billy Wagner broke 0:02:13.400 --> 0:02:15.840 his right elbow and spent the summer in a cast. 0:02:16.639 --> 0:02:20.440 In his memoir, Wagner vividly recalls being a natural righty 0:02:20.480 --> 0:02:23.600 at the time and already mad for baseball, but for 0:02:23.600 --> 0:02:27.000 the next six weeks he threw only left handed. When 0:02:27.000 --> 0:02:29.120 the cast came off, he was in for a surprise 0:02:29.480 --> 0:02:32.480 when he tried throwing with his right The ball went nowhere. 0:02:33.040 --> 0:02:36.360 Had lost not just strength but coordination for throwing with 0:02:36.440 --> 0:02:40.600 his right arm and gained it in his left. Wagner wrote, 0:02:40.919 --> 0:02:43.480 I was a natural righty then and still am. I 0:02:43.560 --> 0:02:46.840 do everything right handed, eat hold tools, right to start 0:02:46.840 --> 0:02:53.480 the lawnmower, everything except pitch. Wagner wouldn't be considered ambidextrous, 0:02:53.600 --> 0:02:56.960 though he certainly managed to have an incredibly successful career 0:02:57.120 --> 0:03:00.520 working with his non dominant hand. Base all is full 0:03:00.560 --> 0:03:03.520 of players who switch hit, meaning they hit equally well 0:03:03.600 --> 0:03:06.280 from either the left or right side and are comfortable 0:03:06.360 --> 0:03:09.840 facing left or right handed pitchers. Some like Hall of 0:03:09.880 --> 0:03:14.000 famers Eddie Murray, Mickey Mantle, and Chipper Jones, were very successful, 0:03:14.639 --> 0:03:18.720 but they, like Wagner, weren't truly ambidexterous, which is something 0:03:18.800 --> 0:03:25.160 that's very difficult to do. But why. Aucklenburg said, handedness 0:03:25.240 --> 0:03:28.280 is something that is generated in the brain, not the hands. 0:03:28.760 --> 0:03:31.360 As such, the half of the brain contralateral to the 0:03:31.440 --> 0:03:35.560 hand is better in controlling fine motor movements. For example, 0:03:35.640 --> 0:03:39.480 the left brain hemisphere in right handers. The strength of 0:03:39.480 --> 0:03:42.760 this preference varies between individuals. Some people have a very 0:03:42.800 --> 0:03:46.280 strong preference for one hand and resulting from that greater 0:03:46.360 --> 0:03:49.920 issue in using the other for specific tasks. So it's 0:03:49.960 --> 0:03:54.080 the brain that sets the barrier. But if the brain 0:03:54.120 --> 0:03:57.720 sets the barrier, the brain can also remove it. Take 0:03:57.800 --> 0:04:01.640 the case of Billy McLaughlin. McLoughlin is an award winning 0:04:01.640 --> 0:04:05.480 guitarist known for a unique style of play, placing both 0:04:05.520 --> 0:04:09.040 hands on the fretboard. He was originally predominantly a right 0:04:09.080 --> 0:04:12.160 handed guitar player, but in the late nineteen nineties, but 0:04:12.240 --> 0:04:15.120 despite having a record at number seven on the Billboard Charts, 0:04:15.160 --> 0:04:18.400 he was struggling with control problems. He was missing notes 0:04:18.400 --> 0:04:21.200 when he played, and experienced muscle spasms to the point 0:04:21.240 --> 0:04:24.880 that he was unable to perform. Finally, in two thousand one, 0:04:25.120 --> 0:04:29.479 McLoughlin was diagnosed with vocal dystonia, a movement disorder causing 0:04:29.520 --> 0:04:34.120 muscles to contract involuntarily. Though advised to find another career, 0:04:34.440 --> 0:04:37.600 McLoughlin opted to teach himself to play left handed, and 0:04:37.880 --> 0:04:43.240 he succeeded. So this begs the question, can we teach 0:04:43.240 --> 0:04:47.320 ourselves to become ambidextrous as adults. A two thousand seven 0:04:47.360 --> 0:04:50.040 study found that as we age, we actually become more 0:04:50.040 --> 0:04:53.560 ambidextrous without even trying, in part because the hand that 0:04:53.600 --> 0:04:57.440 we use more loses its dominance. The study was small. 0:04:57.480 --> 0:05:01.480 It included sixty participants, all wrongly right handed according to 0:05:01.520 --> 0:05:07.800 the Edinburgh Handedness Inventory. The participants completed various computerized dexterity tests, 0:05:08.000 --> 0:05:12.800 which included line tracing and aiming task and tapping. The 0:05:12.880 --> 0:05:16.000 youngest group, average age twenty five years, performed all the 0:05:16.040 --> 0:05:20.120 skills proficiently using their right hand. The middle aged participants, 0:05:20.160 --> 0:05:23.440 average age fifty years, performed well using either hand on 0:05:23.480 --> 0:05:27.000 the aiming task, while the two oldest groups, average ages 0:05:27.120 --> 0:05:30.400 seventy and eighty years, performed just as well using either 0:05:30.480 --> 0:05:36.359 hand on all tasks except one. However, overall performance appeared 0:05:36.360 --> 0:05:40.159 to decline with increasing age, especially for the participants dominant 0:05:40.240 --> 0:05:44.440 right hand, leading researchers to believe that quote we become 0:05:44.560 --> 0:05:47.839 more ambidexterous as we get older because our dominant hand 0:05:47.960 --> 0:05:52.000 loses its superior dexterity and becomes more like our weaker hand. 0:05:53.480 --> 0:05:56.640 Some people have wondered whether attempting to become ambidexterous could 0:05:56.680 --> 0:06:00.000 strengthen the brain and potentially slow or fight the effect 0:06:00.240 --> 0:06:04.960 of aging or dementia. Aucklandberg said that's a myth. While 0:06:05.040 --> 0:06:07.320 it is true in general that brain training is a 0:06:07.360 --> 0:06:10.160 good idea when aging, research has shown that what gets 0:06:10.160 --> 0:06:13.560 strengthened is what is trained. So if I trained to 0:06:13.640 --> 0:06:16.599 write with my non dominant hand, this would affect the 0:06:16.640 --> 0:06:19.559 motor brain areas of the contralateral half of the brain, 0:06:20.040 --> 0:06:23.680 but not the areas involved in memory. Thus a specific 0:06:23.760 --> 0:06:31.080 memory training would make more sense in aging and dementia. 0:06:31.960 --> 0:06:34.600 Today's episode was written by Patty Resmusin and produced by 0:06:34.600 --> 0:06:37.120 Tyler Clang. For more on this and lots of other topics, 0:06:37.200 --> 0:06:39.960 visit how stuff works dot com. Brain Stuff is production 0:06:40.000 --> 0:06:42.479 of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts my heart Radio, 0:06:42.600 --> 0:06:45.200 visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever 0:06:45.240 --> 0:06:46.520 you listen to your favorite shows.