Re: Does handedess affect dominance of other parts of the body?

This topic might fit best under "behavior" for a science fair project.
Maybe even Zoology if you think about the same topic ocurrs for many animals.

In relation to humans, your question
"Does handedness affect dominance of other parts of the body?"

is an interesting one. So I guess your asking if one is right handed would
they also be right footed ? Or maybe another way to look at it is if one is
right handed is it unlikely that they would be left footed. Just from what
you know from interacting with people is that the generality holds such
that right handed people are right footed as well. However I am sure there
are exceptions to the general observation. 

It would be nice to know if there are scientific studies dealing on this
topic. In searching for such information one can look through medical and
scientific research publications.
I typed in " handedness dominance brain " in a search engine called PubMed.
You can find this on line at :  http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi
or at  http://www.nlm.nih.gov/

Some studies that address parts of your question are shown below.

One article discusses the ability of people using a written language while
tapping their fingers to learn about how the brain and handle multiple
tasks at once.

Dyslexia and dysgraphia: more than written language difficulties in common.
 Journal of  Learning  Disabilities 2003 Jul-Aug;36(4):307-17.
Mather DS.
dmathr@yahoo.com

A dual-task paradigm involving concurrent finger tapping and line
orientation judgment was used to investigate brain processing differences
in early adolescent good readers/poor spellers (dysgraphia), poor
readers/poor spellers (dyslexia) and good readers/good spellers. Whereas
all groups were similarly affected during the left-hand tapping condition,
in the right-hand tapping condition the good spelling group displayed
significantly less tapping disruption than both poor spelling groups, who
did not differ significantly from each other. From these results, it can be
inferred that individuals with dyslexia and dysgraphia share a
left-hemisphere processing limitation that is not confined to written
language. In light of other relevant research findings, I suggest that this
limitation is due to the absence of a disembedding scanning mechanism for
converting spatial arrays (e.g., spelling patterns) to temporal form-an
impairment putatively caused by attempting to teach written language to
children who are late in establishing left-hemisphere motor dominance.

The next article mentions way to measure in peoples brains which areas are
active during particular tasks. There is even a journal on Human Brain 
Mapping. I put this abstract here so you could read about the types of
techniques. 

Determining the hemispheric dominance of spatial attention: A comparison
between fTCD and fMRI. Hum Brain Mapp. 2004 Nov;23(3):168.

Jansen A, Floel A, Deppe M, Van Randenborgh J, Drager B, Kanowski M, Knecht S.

Department of Neurology, University of Munster, Munster, Germany.

Human brain mapping allows the systematic assessment of interindividual
differences in functional brain anatomy. Functional transcranial Doppler
sonography (fTCD) is an imaging tool that allows for fast and mobile
assessment of hemispheric lateralization of task-related brain activation.
It is ideal to screen large cohorts of subjects. The goal of the present
study was to investigate whether fTCD and functional magnetic resonance
imaging (fMRI) determine hemispheric lateralization of brain activation
related to visuospatial attention concordantly. Used together, fMRI and
fTCD may then open up a wide range of potential applications in
neuroscience. Fifteen subjects were examined both with fTCD and fMRI while
they judged accuracy of line bisections (Landmark task). For fTCD, the
maximal mean difference in stimulus-related relative cerebral blood flow
velocity changes in the left and right middle cerebral arteries was
assessed as the lateralization index LI(fTCD). For fMRI, two approaches
were used to determine hemispheric dominance. First, we measured brain
activity as the extent of the activated region, i.e., the number of
activated voxels above a statistical threshold. Second, we calculated the
magnitude of the fMRI signal change between the activation and the control
task within a region of interest. Results of fTCD and fMRI were concordant
in every single case. Therefore, scanning large cohorts with fTCD for
hemispheric dominance during Landmark task will provide results consistent
with fMRI. FMRI can then be used for in depth assessment of the specific
patterns of activation. Hum Brain Mapp 23:168-180, 2004. Copyright 2004
Wiley-Liss, Inc.

In this next study, which is more related to your question, the researchers
used imaging techniques to test if a handedness in language occurs. Since
they showed a right side majority that might go hand and hand with the
majority of right handed people.


Crossed cerebro-cerebellar language dominance.
Jansen A, Floel A, Van Randenborgh J, Konrad C, Rotte M, Forster AF, Deppe
M, Knecht S. Hum. Brain Mapp 24:165-172, 2005. 

Department of Neurology, University of Munster, Munster, Germany.

In addition to its traditional role in motor control, the cerebellum has
been implicated in various cognitive and linguistic functions. Lesion,
anatomic, and functional imaging studies indicate a link between left
frontal language regions and the right cerebellum. To probe the specificity
of this circuit, we examined the association between language-related
lateralized activation of the frontal cortex with lateralized activation of
the cerebellum. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was carried
out during letter-cued word generation in 14 healthy subjects: 7 subjects
displayed typical left-hemisphere and 7 subjects displayed atypical
right-hemisphere language dominance. We found activation of the cerebellar
hemisphere contralateral to the language-dominant cerebral hemisphere in
each subject. The cerebellar activation was confined to the lateral
posterior cerebellar hemisphere (lobule VI, VII B, Cr I, Cr II). This study
demonstrates that crossed cerebral and cerebellar language dominance is a
typical characteristic of brain organization. The functional significance
of the reported activations can now be tested in patients with lesions of
the lateral posterior cerebellum. Hum. Brain Mapp 24:165-172, 2005. 


This other related article demonstrates that there is even a handedness
with sensory information coming into your brain. This was also related to
motor activity in the brain for that sensory input.


Dominance of the right hemisphere and role of area 2 in human kinesthesia.
J Neurophysiol. 2004 Sep 22

Naito E, Roland PE, Grefkes C, Choi HJ, Eickhoff S, Geyer S, Zilles K,
Ehrsson HH.

Department of Neuroscience, Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, Sweden.

We have previously shown that motor areas are engaged when subjects
experience illusory limb movements elicited by tendon vibration. However,
traditionally cytoarchitectonic area 2 is held responsible for kinesthesia.
Here we use functional magnetic resonance imaging and cytoarchitectural
mapping to examine: 1) whether area 2 is engaged in kinesthesia, 2) whether
it is engaged bilaterally since area 2 in non-human primates has strong
callosal connections, 3) which other areas are active members of the
network for kinesthesia, and 4) if there is a dominance for the right
hemisphere in kinesthesia as has been suggested. Ten right-handed
blindfolded healthy subjects participated. The tendon of the extensor carpi
ulnaris muscles of the right or left hand was vibrated at 80 Hz, which
elicited illusory palmar flexion in an immobile hand (ILLUSION). As control
we applied identical stimuli to the skin over the processus styloideus
ulnae, which did not elicit any illusions (VIBRATION). We found robust
activations in cortical motor areas (areas 4a, 4p, 6; PMD and bilateral
SMA) and ipsilateral cerebellum during kinesthetic illusions (ILLUSION -
VIBRATION). The illusions also activated contralateral area 2 and right
area 2 was active in common irrespective of illusions of right or left
hand. Right areas 44, 45, anterior part of intraparietal region (IP1) and
caudo-lateral part of parietal opercular region (OP1), cortex rostral to
PMD, anterior insula and superior temporal gyrus were also activated in
common during illusions of right or left hand. These right-sided areas were
significantly more activated than the corresponding areas in the left
hemisphere. The present data, together with our previous results, suggest
that human kinesthesia is associated with a network of active brain areas
that consists of motor areas, cerebellum, and the right fronto-parietal
areas including high-order somatosensory areas. Furthermore, our results
provide evidence for a right hemisphere dominance for perception of limb
movement.

So I could not find directly an answer to your question with the time I
spent looking for an answer. It does not mean their is not a study on your
question directly, I might not have found  it yet out of so many that are
out their on the brain and  processing of information. From the information
above and other articles from PubMEd it looks as if there is a strong
argument that handedness affects dominance of other parts of the body. But
another way to think of this is that it is not handedness that changes the
rest of the brain but that the parts of the brain develop in such a way
that handedness comes about because the way the brain developed. Then the
"rest of the brain" might develop in a particular way which maintains a
dominate side of the brain for particularly tasks.

I hope this helps a little. 
Keep up the good questions.

All the best,
Robin