Handedness and schizophrenic symptoms.

Studies of the handedness of schizophrenics have produced conflicting results. One possible explanation for this is that, as schizophrenia presents in many different forms, certain symptoms of the illness may relate better than the diagnosis to laterality patterns. Some previous work supports this view. The symptoms of 232 schizophrenics were examined in relation to their handedness. Among males only the handedness patterns of those who showed expressive (formal) thought disorder differed from those of their non-thought-disordered peers, but proved to be very similar to those of normal controls. The distribution of handedness did not otherwise vary significantly with type of symptom. Thus it appears to be the schizophrenic syndrome, and not any individual symptom, that best correlates with the deviation from normal handedness patterns seen among schizophrenics.