ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews the evidence concerning functional brain asymmetry in the regulation of emotion in adults. For facial asymmetry in the expression of emotion to be a viable paradigm for the study of functional brain asymmetry in the regulation of emotion, there must be lateralization in the neural regulation of expressive facial movement. To date, published research on the lateralization of emotion in children has focused on asymmetry in the expression of emotion. Of the 103 cases of gelastic and dacrystic epilepsy reported in the literature, it could be determined that 60 cases had the onset of the first seizure, with or without emotional outburst, before age 12. The sex difference observed in lateralization of foci in gelastic epilepsy, as a function of age, as well as the overall sex difference in incidence of gelastic epilepsy, is perplexing.
