David A. Leopold is in the Section on Cognitive Neurophysiology and Imaging, National Institute of Mental Health, Bethseda, Maryland 20814, USA. In the 1930s, the neurosurgeon Wilder Penfield ...

Experiments mapping individual neurons in the sensorimotor cortex of mice show that sharp transitions in functional properties can define cortical regions.

Scientists found evidence of two interleaved systems, which may help explain the connection between what's going on in our bodies and what's going on in brain areas involved in thoughts and emotions.

Neurons in the brain's motor cortex previously thought of as active mainly during hand and arm movements also light up during speech in a way that is similar to patterns of brain activity linked to ...

The neocortex makes up the greater area of the cerebral cortex. It is divided into different regions (the frontal, parietal, occipital, and temporal lobes) by the bone structure of the skull above it.

Within the brain’s frontal lobe lies the primary motor cortex, a sliver of neurons that coordinates movement. Beginning in the 1930s, scientists developed a map of this brain region called a ...

Researchers have discovered that the dorsal premotor cortex serves a 'meta-learning' function, overseeing and regulating physical movements. Once believed to be limited to movement planning, this ...

The motor cortex homunculus is getting a makeover. New research has essentially redrawn the motor cortex and constitutes one of the most substantial shifts in our topographical knowledge of a sensory ...

The classical view of how the human brain controls voluntary movement might not tell the whole story. That map of the primary motor cortex — the motor homunculus — shows how this brain region is ...

Mouse primary motor and somatosensory cortices contain detailed information about the many time-varying arm and paw joint angles during reaching and grasping, implying a 'low-level' role in ...

In my first neuroscience course at Columbia University, I learned about the homunculus. This “little man” is depicted as an upside-down representation of the human body moving from toe to head in a ...