Placing a magnet on your head can temporarily turn you from a right-hander to a left-handed person, a new study suggests。

　　In an extraordinary experiment researchers used a powerful magnetic field to temporarily confuse the brains of volunteers and change their hand preferences. The effects lasted only while the magnet was switched on and appears to have caused no lasting changes。

　　But the experiment sheds light on the origins of hand choice in the brain and highlights once again how easy it is to alter people's behavior with magnets. Earlier this year, a similar study showed that magnetic therapy can alter people's moral judgments - and make them behave more thoughtlessly。

　　Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, asked right-handed volunteers to reach with either hand towards an object on a table。

　　They then disrupted the volunteer's brain using a powerful hand-held magnet. When the magnet was placed on the left side of the brain region, the volunteers used their left hand more frequently than when the magnet was switched off. Applying the magnet to the right side of the region made no difference, the scientists report。

　　英国《每日邮报》9月27日报道：据最新研究显示，在脑袋上放置一块磁铁能将人暂时从“右撇子”变成“左撇子”。

　　在一个奇特的实验中，研究人员成功运用了一块磁力强大的磁铁短时间内干扰了受试者的大脑运作，并改变了他们的用手习惯。改变只在有磁力时发生，去磁后一切恢复原状。

　　但是该实验也给用手习惯与大脑机制的关系蒙上了阴影，再一次证明了用磁力改变人的行为是多么容易。今年早些时候，就有相似研究表明，磁力疗法可以改变人的道德判断——结果让人们做出了不经过大脑的举动。

　　此项最新研究中，加州大学伯克利分校的研究人员要求“右撇子”受试者用手拿桌上物体。

　　随后研究人员手拿磁铁于受试者头上方开始进行干扰实验。当磁铁被放置在左脑区域，受试者使用左手更加频繁。而当磁铁出现在右脑上方时，受试者的用手习惯没有发生变化。