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 ...

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.

In a recent study published in the Nature Journal, researchers performed precision functional mapping (PFM) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to map the functional organization of the ...

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 ...

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 ...

Okazaki, Japan – When we learn a motor pattern such as a new sport or dance, movements that were not possible at the beginning can be memorized and made easy through practice. It has been widely ...

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 ...

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 ...

Your nerves transmit messages within the brain, as well as among the brain, spinal cord, and the body. In order to do this, they use a combination of electrical and chemical signaling. Motor neurons ...

Pioneering neuroscientist Santiago Ramón y Cajal jump-started the search for a “components catalogue” of the human brain towards the end of the 19th century. His intricate drawings of brain cells, ...