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Reliability of a novel paradigm for determining hemispheric lateralization of visuospatial function

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 November 2009

ANDREW J. O. WHITEHOUSE ,
NICHOLAS BADCOCK ,
MARGRIET A. GROEN  and
DOROTHY V. M. BISHOP
ANDREW J. O. WHITEHOUSE*
Affiliation:
Center for Child Health Research, University of Western Australia, Perth, Australia Neurocognitive Development Unit, School of Psychology, University of Western Australia, Perth, Australia Department of Experimental Psychology, Oxford University, Oxford, United Kingdom
NICHOLAS BADCOCK
Affiliation:
Department of Experimental Psychology, Oxford University, Oxford, United Kingdom
MARGRIET A. GROEN
Affiliation:
Department of Experimental Psychology, Oxford University, Oxford, United Kingdom
DOROTHY V. M. BISHOP
Affiliation:
Department of Experimental Psychology, Oxford University, Oxford, United Kingdom
*
*Correspondence and reprint requests: Dr. Andrew Whitehouse, Telethon Institute for Child Health Research, Center for Child Health Research, University of Western Australia, 100 Roberts Road, Subiaco, Western Australia, 6008. E-mail: awhitehouse@ichr.uwa.edu.au
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Abstract

In most individuals, language production and visuospatial skills are subserved predominantly by the left and right hemispheres, respectively. Functional Transcranial Doppler (fTCD) provides a noninvasive and relatively low-cost method for measuring functional lateralization. However, while the silent word generation task provides an accurate and reliable paradigm for investigating lateralization of language production, there is no comparable gold-standard method for measuring visuospatial skills. Thirty undergraduate students (19 females) completed a task of spatial memory while undergoing fTCD recording. Participants completed this task at two different time points, separated by between 26 to 155 days. The relative activation between hemispheres averaged across all participants was found to be consistent across testing sessions. This was observed at the individual level also, with a quantitative index of lateralization showing high reproducibility. These findings indicate that the use of the spatial memory task with fTCD is a robust methodology for examining laterality of visuospatial skills. (JINS, 2009, 15, 1028–1032.)

Keywords

Cerebral lateralizationVisuospatialFunctional transcranial Doppler ultrasonographyReliabilityReproducibilitySpatial memory
Type
Brief Communications
Information
Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society , Volume 15 , Issue 6 , November 2009 , pp. 1028 - 1032
Copyright
Copyright © The International Neuropsychological Society 2009

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