Childhood laterality and later risk of schizophrenia in the 1946 British birth cohort.

Abstract

An increased rate on non-righthandedness and other abnormalities of lateralization have been reported in schizophrenia. We investigated childhood hand preference and eye dominance as risk factors for adult schizophrenia among a general population birth cohort. Pre-schizophrenic children showed a significant excess of left-eye dominance at age 11 when compared with controls (OR 2.5, 1.0-5.8, p = 0.03), but there was no significant difference in hand preference between pre-schizophrenic children and controls.