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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...

Vision

Vision

Vision is the result of light being detected and transduced into neural signals by the retina of the eye. This information is then further analyzed and interpreted by the brain. First, light enters the front of the eye and is focused by the cornea and lens onto the retina—a thin sheet of neural tissue lining the back of the eye. Because of refraction through the convex lens of the eye, images are projected onto the retina upside-down and reversed.

Visual System

Visual System

Light enters the eye through the cornea, a transparent, dome-shaped surface covering the surface of the eyeball that helps to direct and focus incoming light. This light is then channeled toward the pupil, an adjustable opening whose size is controlled by the iris. The iris, a pigmented muscle, regulates the amount of light entering the eye by contracting or dilating the pupil, thereby ensuring optimal light levels for clear vision.
Once through the pupil, the light passes through the lens, a...

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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Jun 6, 2026

In Vivo Visualization of Spontaneous Activity in Neonatal Mouse Sensory Cortex at a Single-Neuron Resolution

In Vivo Visualization of Spontaneous Activity in Neonatal Mouse Sensory Cortex at a Single-Neuron Resolution

Published on: November 21, 2023

A shared multi-feature population code for sensory reliability across mouse visual cortex.

Elizabeth M Edwards¹, Megan H Lipton¹, Anne B Sereno^1,2,3

¹Weldon School of Biomedical Engineering, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 47907, USA.

Biorxiv : the Preprint Server for Biology

|June 5, 2026

Summary

This summary is machine-generated.

The brain encodes sensory reliability using coordinated neural responses in visual areas. This finding reveals a general cortical computation for processing uncertainty in perception.

Keywords:

Sensory reliability calcium imaging motion processing population coding vision visual cortex

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Published on: December 8, 2023

Area of Science:

Neuroscience
Computational Neuroscience
Visual Perception

Background:

The brain must represent sensory information alongside its uncertainty for optimal processing.
Neural mechanisms for encoding sensory reliability are not well understood.

Purpose of the Study:

To identify the neural response properties that mediate sensory reliability encoding in the visual cortex.
To investigate if this encoding strategy is consistent across different visual areas.

Main Methods:

Large-scale two-photon calcium imaging of approximately 140,000 neurons.
Recording neural activity in primary visual cortex (V1) and higher visual areas (HVAs).
Presenting random dot kinematograms to assess responses to varying sensory reliability.

Main Results:

Identified a common coding strategy where sensory reliability is represented by coordinated changes in response gain, selectivity, and variability.
Observed these response properties at both single-neuron and population levels.
Found consistency in the encoding strategy across V1 and HVAs, with quantitative differences.

Conclusions:

Reliability encoding is a general cortical computation implemented via a shared population code.
Provides empirical constraints for probabilistic theories of perception and hierarchical visual processing models.