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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....

Somatosensation

Somatosensation

The somatosensory system relays sensory information from the skin, mucous membranes, limbs, and joints. Somatosensation is more familiarly known as the sense of touch. A typical somatosensory pathway includes three types of long neurons: primary, secondary, and tertiary. Primary neurons have cell bodies located near the spinal cord in groups of neurons called dorsal root ganglia. The sensory neurons of ganglia innervate designated areas of skin called dermatomes.

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...

Major Somatic Sensory Pathways

Major Somatic Sensory Pathways

Sensory impulses related to touch, pressure, vibration, and proprioception from various body parts, such as the limbs, trunk, neck, and posterior head, travel to the cerebral cortex through the posterior column-medial lemniscus pathway. The pathway’s name derives from the two white-matter tracts that convey the impulses: the spinal cord's posterior column and the brainstem's medial lemniscus. First-order sensory neurons extend their axons into the spinal cord, forming the...

Association Areas of the Cortex

Association Areas of the Cortex

Association areas are regions of the cerebral cortex that do not have a specific sensory or motor function. Instead, they integrate and interpret information from various sources to enable higher cognitive processes such as memory, learning, and decision-making. Some key association areas include the following:
Prefrontal Association Area: This area is located in the frontal lobe and is involved in planning, decision-making, and moderating social behavior. It connects with primary motor areas,...

Equilibrium and Balance

Equilibrium and Balance

The inner ear assumes dual functionalities of auditory perception and equilibrium maintenance. The vestibule is the organ responsible for balance. This organ contains mechanoreceptors, specifically hair cells, endowed with stereocilia, which aid in deciphering information regarding the position and motion of our heads. Two intrinsic components, the utricle and saccule, help perceive head position, while the semicircular canals track head movement. Neurological messages initiated in the...

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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Oct 13, 2025

Mapping Cortical Dynamics Using Simultaneous MEG/EEG and Anatomically-constrained Minimum-norm Estimates: an Auditory Attention Example

Mapping Cortical Dynamics Using Simultaneous MEG/EEG and Anatomically-constrained Minimum-norm Estimates: an Auditory Attention Example

Published on: October 24, 2012

Multisensory coding of angular head velocity in the retrosplenial cortex.

Sepiedeh Keshavarzi¹, Edward F Bracey¹, Richard A Faville¹

¹Sainsbury Wellcome Centre for Neural Circuits and Behaviour, University College London (UCL), 25 Howland Street, London W1T 4JG, United Kingdom.

|November 17, 2021

Summary

Animals use angular head velocity (AHV) neurons to navigate. This study shows vestibular input is key for AHV coding, with vision enhancing accuracy during exploration.

Keywords:

Angular head velocity Head direction Multisensory integration Navigation Optic flow Retrosplenial cortex Self-motion Spatial orientation Vestibular sense

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Last Updated: Oct 13, 2025

Mapping Cortical Dynamics Using Simultaneous MEG/EEG and Anatomically-constrained Minimum-norm Estimates: an Auditory Attention Example

Mapping Cortical Dynamics Using Simultaneous MEG/EEG and Anatomically-constrained Minimum-norm Estimates: an Auditory Attention Example

Published on: October 24, 2012

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A Large Lateral Craniotomy Procedure for Mesoscale Wide-field Optical Imaging of Brain Activity

A Large Lateral Craniotomy Procedure for Mesoscale Wide-field Optical Imaging of Brain Activity

Published on: May 7, 2017

Area of Science:

Neuroscience
Sensory processing
Animal behavior

Background:

Accurate navigation relies on continuous tracking of heading direction and speed.
Neurons encoding angular head velocity (AHV) are crucial for this, but cortical processing of motion signals is not fully understood.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate the contribution of vestibular and visual inputs to AHV coding in the retrosplenial cortex (RSP).
To determine how these sensory inputs influence heading estimation during navigation.

Main Methods:

Chronic single-unit recordings in the mouse retrosplenial cortex (RSP).
Activity tracking of AHV cells in freely moving and head-restrained conditions.
Psychophysical experiments and neural decoding.

Main Results:

Vestibular inputs were found to dominate AHV signaling in the RSP.
Visual input addition enhanced the gain and signal-to-noise ratio of AHV neuron tuning during active exploration.
Vestibular-visual integration improved perceptual accuracy and neural representation fidelity of angular self-motion.

Conclusions:

Cortical AHV coding fundamentally requires vestibular input.
The brain integrates visual information with vestibular signals to optimize heading estimation, particularly during active navigation.