Dr. Otto Soltmann (1876) on development of the motor cortex and recovery after its removal in infancy

In 1870, Fritsch and Hitzig demonstrated that dogs have a motor cortex. In a chapter published 6 years later, Otto Soltmann studied the functional development of the motor cortex, which he believed functioned in willed movement. He was the first to show that the dog's motor cortex becomes electrically excitable at about 10 days of age, with the contralateral forepaw area appearing first. He also studied the effects of ablating the cortical motor regions unilaterally and bilaterally, and encountered a remarkable degree of sparing of function in his animals operated on as newborns, but not in older-operated dogs. Soltmann turned to the theory of functional take-over (vicariation) to account for the absence of deficits in his young animals. He was especially intrigued by the fact that electrical stimulation of a healthy motor cortex could produce bilateral matched movements, but only in dogs that sustained opposite motor cortex lesions very early in life.