Here`s how brain handles numbers

Washington D.C.: A new study has revealed that right side of our brain region responds to small numbers and the adjacent region to larger ones.

The Imperial College London study offers new insights into the mystery of how our brains handle numbers. The findings of the research could in the future help to tailor rehabilitation techniques for patients, who have suffered brain damage, such as stroke patients, and inform treatments for conditions such as dyscalculia, which causes difficulty in processing numbers.

The brain is divided into two halves - the left side controls the right half of the body, and vice versa. Generally, one side of the brain is more dominant than the other. For example, people who are right-handed tend to have more activity in the left side of their brains.

Lead author Dr. Qadeer Arshad said that in their new study, in which they used healthy volunteers, they found the left side processes large numbers, and the right processes small numbers. "So for instance, if you were looking at a clock, the numbers one to six would be processed on the right side of the brain, and six to twelve would be processed on the left."

The study is published in the journal Cerebral Cortex.