@article{ref1,
title="The evolution of contralateral control of the body by the brain: Is it a protective mechanism?",
journal="Laterality",
year="2014",
author="Whitehead, Lorne and Banihani, Saleh",
volume="19",
number="3",
pages="325-339",
abstract="Contralateral control, the arrangement whereby most of the human motor and sensory fibres cross the midline in order to provide control for contralateral portions of the body, presents a puzzle from an evolutionary perspective. What caused such a counterintuitive and complex arrangement to become dominant? In this paper we offer a new perspective on this question by showing that in a complex interactive control system there could be a significant net survival advantage with contralateral control, associated with the effect of injuries of intermediate severity. In such cases an advantage could arise from a combination of non-linear system response combined with correlations between injuries on the same side of the head and body. We show that a simple mathematical model of these ideas emulates such an advantage. Based on this model, we conclude that effects of this kind are a plausible driving force for the evolution of contralateral control.<p /> <p>Language: en</p>",
language="en",
issn="1357-650X",
doi="10.1080/1357650X.2013.824461",
url="http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1357650X.2013.824461"
}