Hemispheric asymmetries are a major organizational principle of the human brain. In different neurodevelopmental and psychiatric disorders, like schizophrenia, autism spectrum disorders, depression, dyslexia and posttraumatic stress disorder, functional and/or structural hemispheric asymmetries are altered compared to healthy controls. The question, why these disorders all share the common characteristic of altered hemispheric asymmetries despite vastly different etiologies and symptoms remains one of the unsolved mysteries of laterality research. This review is aimed at reviewing potential reasons for why atypical lateralization is so common in many neurodevelopmental and psychiatric disorders. To this end, we review the evidence for overlaps in the genetic and non-genetic factors involved in the ontogenesis of different disorders and hemispheric asymmetries. While there is evidence for genetic overlap between different disorders, only few asymmetry-related loci have also been linked to disorders and importantly, those effects are mostly specific to single disorders. However, there is evidence for shared non-genetic influences between disorders and hemispheric asymmetries. Most neurodevelopmental and psychiatric disorders show alterations in the hypothalamic-pituitary adrenocortical (HPA) axis and maternal as well as early life stress have been implicated in their etiology. Stress has also been suggested to affect hemispheric asymmetries. We propose a model in which early life stress as well as chronic stress not only increases the risk for psychiatric and neurodevelopmental disorders but also changes structural and functional hemispheric asymmetries leading to the aberrant lateralization patterns seen in these disorders. Thus, pathology-related changes in hemispheric asymmetries are not a factor causing disorders, but rather a different phenotype that is affected by partly overlapping ontogenetic factors, primarily stress.

中文翻译：

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神经发育和精神疾病中的非典型性偏侧化：压力的作用是什么？

半球不对称是人脑的主要组织原理。在不同的神经发育和精神疾病中，例如精神分裂症，自闭症谱系障碍，抑郁症，阅读障碍和创伤后应激障碍，与健康对照组相比，功能和/或结构性半球不对称性发生改变。尽管病因和症状千差万别，这些疾病为何都具有改变的半球不对称性的共同特征的问题仍然是侧向研究的未解之谜之一。这篇综述旨在综述为什么在许多神经发育和精神疾病中非典型偏侧化如此普遍的潜在原因。为此，我们审查了不同疾病和半球不对称的本体发育中涉及的遗传和非遗传因素重叠的证据。尽管有证据表明不同疾病之间存在遗传重叠，但也只有极少数与不对称性相关的基因位点与疾病相关，重要的是，这些影响主要针对单一疾病。但是，有证据表明，疾病和半球不对称之间存在共同的非遗传影响。大多数神经发育和精神疾病显示下丘脑-垂体肾上腺皮质（HPA）轴发生改变，其病因涉及母体和早期生活压力。还已经提出应力会影响半球不对称性。我们提出了一个模型，其中早期生活压力以及慢性压力不仅增加了精神疾病和神经发育障碍的风险，而且还改变了结构和功能的半球不对称性，从而导致这些疾病中出现异常的侧偏模式。因此，与病理相关的半球不对称性变化不是引起疾病的因素，而是不同的表型，其受部分重叠的个体遗传因素（主要是压力）的影响。