Which nostril goes to brain

This was a trend of a higher percentage of right nostril dominant participants showing more errors compared with the percentage of left nostril dominant persons is shown in Figure 1 for scores less than the median and Figure 2 for scores greater than the median. Scores for omitted letters, wrongly cancelled letters, and total errors for right and left nostril-dominant persons. Percentage of subjects who had higher error scores i.

There were no significant dominant nostril-based differences in the performance of the letter cancellation task among persons. Paper-and-pencil tests require rapid visual selectivity while practising a motor response task. These tests assess many functions, not the least of which is the capacity for sustained attention.

Visual scanning as well as the activation and inhibition of rapid responses, are also necessary for the successful performance of cancellation tasks. Lowered scores on these tasks can reflect a general slowing of responses and inattentiveness, or more specific defects of response shifting and motor slowing, or of unilateral inattention.

With the addition of a motor component, these tasks call upon a set of functions similar to those relevant to other complex tests of attention. Right nostril dominance is believed to be associated with left hemisphere dominance which is connected with verbal task performance.

Hence, right nostril breathing may have been expected to be associated with a decrease in errors in a verbal cancellation task. This was not seen in the present study. It has been proposed that it is possible to selectively activate the cerebral hemispheres, thereby enhancing lateralized cognitive abilities. Cortical activation and laterality were examined using ratios of the low beta Hz and high alpha Hz bandwidths relative to each other and between hemispheres.

Repeated measures ANOVAs showed non-significant changes in the alpha and beta bandwidths across the 4 experimental conditions. Although changes in hemispheric activation have been postulated for all subjects, the study did not support such changes in subjects untrained in breathing techniques. Hence this study also did not support the idea of asymmetric hemispheric activation in untrained subjects.

However, an earlier study assessed the temporal stability of alpha asymmetry, and examined the relationship between asymmetry and emotion both state and trait. The predicted relationship between alpha asymmetry and nostril dominance was found for spontaneous, but not for forced unilateral nostril breathing. In summary, the present study on participants showed no direct association between the dominant nostril during spontaneous breathing and the performance in a verbal task.

However, the study sample had a wide age range and unequal numbers of males and females. Further research should be carried out examining larger samples within a smaller age range and with comparable numbers of males and females. National Center for Biotechnology Information , U. Journal List Int J Yoga v. Int J Yoga. Sasmita Samantaray and Shirley Telles.

Author information Copyright and License information Disclaimer. Correspondence to: Dr. E-mail: moc. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

This article has been cited by other articles in PMC. Abstract Background: An association has been reported between the dominant nostril through which we breathe and the cerebral hemisphere found to be active. Aims: To understand the association between the nostril dominant at rest and the performance in a cancellation task using verbal information—a left hemisphere task. Materials and Methods: Two hundred eighty-nine normal, healthy volunteers attending a one week nonresidential yoga camp were assessed in a single 30 minute period.

Results: There was no statistically significant difference between right and left nostril-dominant participants. Conclusions: The present results do not support previous findings of contralateral cerebral hemisphere improvement with breathing through a specific nostril. Keywords: Left cerebral hemisphere, letter cancellation task, nostril dominance. Design The design included a single assessment within a 30 minute period in the morning; nostril dominance was assessed as described below.

Assessment The letter cancellation task consists of an answer sheet with 24 printed rows and 29 letter in each row. This may be why a more emotional response is elicited by smells entering the right nostril. Ventral bottom surface of the brain. References: Herz, R. Hemispheric lateralization in the processing of odor pleasantness versus odor names. Chemical Senses , , Search Pages.

The right hemisphere dominates, by contrast, for some kinds of emotional processing. That's why people with a stroke on the left side of their brain often lose basic language skills, such as the ability to find the right word for an object or to string words together intelligibly. Right-brain stroke patients are more likely to lose certain emotional components of their speech, such as the ability to modulate the pitch and loudness of their voice.