Using aibu because it's the only board with voting. Really MNHQ you should do something about that. Anyway. Fingers.

[IncompleteSenten]

Put your hand up in the air like you're asking a question.

Bend only your little finger.

YANBU - My ring finger goes down with it. Those guys do everything together. It's not my decision. PS this thread is pointless shit and you just wasted 2 minutes of my Sunday.

YABU - pinky is doing his own thing, the others are still standing to attention. PS this thread is pointless shit and you just wasted 2 minutes of my Sunday.

Me too with the eyebrows. I can also wink with both eyes and move my eyes independently.

I’m just weird.

I can move both but I have to put a lot more thought into my right hand. I’m ambidextrous but predominately right-handed.

Can't move either pinky independently here! And middle fingers want to curl too! Don't play any musical instruments but regularly perform surgery😂

I can move each of them independently on both hands because - get this - i used to practice it when I was a kid. No idea why, but I did have hobbies and friend, I swear 😂

And yes I play the piano

😂great (if pointless) thread, op

I can raise my right eyebrow alone but not the left.
I can also curl my lip up in a wanky sneer on the right side but not the left.
I'm left handed.

I assume when I was being formed my brain said ok, writing and all useful stuff is lefties job. Right hand side you can, oh, I dunno, wiggle the eyebrow and lip.

Extra question - how many of you read the first sentence of my op and thought "like you just don't care"?

It's the heat. I've gone dolally tap.

Left hand pinky doesn’t like to be on it’s own. Right hand pinky is quite happy to go on its own as long as I concentrate.

I can move them independently in a relaxed curved hand position (flute trill) but not with hand up ...

Yanbu I never realised this!

Also same with the right eyebrow! Really weird

I can't bend it without my ring finger bending unless I concentrate really hard on it but I can move each finger sideways independently. I played clarinet for a few years a long time ago so it could be from that.

I can move the left independently but not the right. I'm left handed. I can move the right independently-ish if the fingers aren't all dead straight. I can also move the little finger down straight without moving the ring finger. Ring fingers on both hands can move independently.

What about toes? my little toes can move sideways independently but I can't curl them without curling the other 3 (big toe doesn't bend). I struggle to bend my big toe without bending the others but it is just about possible - I can bend it with the toe straight but not curl the toe up...

Does anyone want to know why???

Tough, I'm gonna explain it anyway. This is due to an anatomical variance. For many people, each digit from index to little has two muscles that bend it.

The one that attaches to the middle joint of the finger (the proximal interphalangeal joint) is called the flexor digitorum superficialis and can bend that middle joint independently with everything else staying still.

The one that attaches to the top joint (the distal interphalangeal joint) is called flexor digitorum profundus. Now THIS muscle has 3 tendons that attach to the middle, ring and little fingers. It works all three fingers together, so if you're using it to move the little finger, you have to move the ring (and the middle) too.

If you can move your little finger to flexion by itself it means you have all the muscles you should have. If you can't.... Well you're missing a muscle I'm afraid.

But it gets MORE interesting. Because this muscle is not just present or absent. Sometimes (and this is known primarily from cadaver studies), the muscle is present but it has no tendon linking it to the finger. Sometimes, the tendon is there but no muscle. And sometimes, it's all there but under developed (a presentation known as vestigial).

So why the variation????

Evolution.

We know the variety seen across the population represents change. But given the VERY slow speed of change in evolution of a species that reproduce the way we do, we DO NOT KNOW FOR SURE which presentation is the more evolved. There are a variety of theories (more muscles= good, we're evolving to have extra vs. we're becoming a lazy bunch who don't need to catch our own food so no need for all these muscles.)

So, I cordially invite you to a bun fight about whether your emotional support fingers are a sign you are ahead of the curve, or whether the independent movers are further ahead on our evolutionary path.

Sorry everyone, can't turn off the geek.

Thank you.
That's really interesting!

Obviously my way is the more evolved way because it's my thread and them's the rules. 😁

This is a brilliant thread! Loving the explanation @dogscatsandbabies but so many more questions now! Presumably if the muscle is there but not the tendon the finger won't bend alone? Or is it that it will bend but not as far? And if either the muscle or tendon is missing does that mean that the other atrophies from lack of use? And can this change over time? If you rupture the tendon for instance would that eventually lead to the vestigial presentation you mentioned? And is there a link with musical instruments??

And given the number of pp who can do one hand and not the other, does that mean that one half of them is more evolved?

@dogscatsandbabies ah thats really interesting!

I can do it on my left and right hands, but not on my third one so I'm going to go with it being a sign of more advanced evolution.

@nonevernotever I reckon you're a fellow hand geek in the making!

I can't say I'm up to date with the research because I haven't gone back and looked at it in a few years. But I'm happy to say there is a lot we don't know. The finding here that many people have more movement one side than the other is common. I'm a hand therapist and when this was highlighted to me as a thing very early in my career I couldn't bend either of my little fingers independently. But as I've demonstrated exercises and practised over the years, I now have some movement on my right. So we assume I always had the apparatus but it was very weak and my focused work has managed to get something out of it. If you're missing either the muscle or the tendon there would be an incomplete structure and it wouldn't create any movement.

I think the musician question is interesting as actually most of us rarely try to move our little finger independently so we train our more global FDP muscle to be dominant. As musicians need more independent finger movement, it's quite possible that they will train anything that is underdeveloped like i did and we'd see a higher incidence of FDS activity in that population. I'm not aware of any study that shows this. The only one I do recall was a study that showed if you're a high level tennis player you are more likely to have FDS (the independent mover) I'm your little finger than the percentage findings in the general population.

This has certainly prompted me to task a student to take another look at recent research on it.

And I agree with a much earlier poster- Linburg-Comstock is another interesting anatomical variance in the hand. Come, be geeks with me!

Me too.

But I think with practice I could do it with effort - I can half do it.

But I have strange fingers, the top joint of my little finger is double jointed on both hands, although arthritis has forced the one on my right hand to stop bending the wrong way.

I always struggled typing on the old manual typewriters as this finger would bend and slip through the keys.

Ring finger moves as well. But once I've bent the little finger, I can then straighten the ring finger back up.

This. Also I can never see the voting options on AIBU why is that?

And then there's the palmaris longus, an entirely unnecessary extra wrist tendon some people have and others don't. It's bizarre how many bits and pieces are built differently with apparently little effect on day to day function.

slight twitch on ring finger both hands