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Motor and Sensory Areas of the Cortex

Motor and Sensory Areas of the Cortex

The cerebral cortex, the brain's outermost layer, is pivotal in processing complex cognitive tasks, emotions, and various sensory inputs and executing voluntary motor activities. This intricate structure is divided into three primary functional areas: the motor areas, sensory areas, and association areas.
Motor Areas
The motor areas located in the frontal lobe are central to controlling voluntary movements. This region is further subdivided into the primary motor cortex and the premotor cortex.

Somatosensory, Motor, and Association Cortex

Somatosensory, Motor, and Association Cortex

The somatosensory cortex in the parietal lobes is crucial for interpreting sensory data such as touch, temperature, and proprioception. The somatosensory cortex, situated in the parietal lobes, plays a vital role in interpreting sensory information like touch, temperature, and proprioception—awareness of body position. This specialized brain region features an organized structure wherein neurons at the top primarily process sensations originating from the lower body. In contrast, those at the...

Hierarchy of Motor Control

Hierarchy of Motor Control

The hierarchy of motor control refers to the different levels of organization and processing involved in controlling movement in the body. These levels range from higher cortical areas involved in planning and decision-making to lower spinal cord reflexes that respond automatically to external stimuli.

Direct Motor Pathways

Direct Motor Pathways

The direct motor pathways, also known as the pyramidal tracts, are a group of neural pathways that originate in the brain and descend through the spinal cord. They control the voluntary movement of the body. There are two major direct motor pathways: the corticospinal and the corticobulbar tracts.
The corticospinal tract is responsible for the voluntary movement of the limbs and trunk. It originates in the cerebral cortex of the brain and descends through the cerebrum's internal capsule and the...

Motor Unit Stimulation

Motor Unit Stimulation

When the neuron of a motor unit fires an action potential, it triggers a series of events, leading to a twitch contraction in the muscle fibers. The process of excitation-contraction coupling is crucial in relaying the action potential to the muscle fibers.
The latent period of contraction marks the onset of excitation-contraction coupling, when the action potential propagates across the sarcolemma, preparing the muscle fibers for contraction. As the fibers enter the contraction phase, the...

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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Jun 25, 2026

Assessing Corticospinal Excitability During Goal-Directed Reaching Behavior

Assessing Corticospinal Excitability During Goal-Directed Reaching Behavior

Published on: December 2, 2022

Cortical processing during dynamic motor adaptation.

Simon A Overduin¹, Andrew G Richardson, Emilio Bizzi

¹Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences and McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 43 Vassar Street, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA. overduin@mit.edu

Advances in Experimental Medicine and Biology

|February 21, 2009

Summary

This summary is machine-generated.

The motor cortex network supports motor learning in new environments. Disrupting primary motor cortex (M1) with rTMS affects offline motor memory consolidation, not initial adaptation.

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Last Updated: Jun 25, 2026

Assessing Corticospinal Excitability During Goal-Directed Reaching Behavior

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Area of Science:

Neuroscience
Motor Control
Robotics

Background:

Motor cortex is crucial for movement adaptation.
Understanding motor memory formation is key to rehabilitation.

Purpose of the Study:

Investigate the motor cortex's role in adapting to novel dynamic environments.
Determine the specific contribution of primary motor cortex (M1) to motor memory.

Main Methods:

Electrophysiological recordings in monkeys adapting to robotic force fields.
Repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) to perturb human motor cortex excitability during adaptation.

Main Results:

Cortical networks (SMA, premotor, M1) encode movement parameters and adapt to new forces, suggesting a role in motor memory.
rTMS disruption of M1 impaired offline motor memory improvement, but not initial adaptation.

Conclusions:

Motor cortex networks are involved in encoding and adapting to dynamic environments.
M1 plays a critical role in offline consolidation of motor memories, rather than initial learning.