2023-04-19 23:19:33
The motor cortex forms a band running from temple to temple, passing through the top of the skull. Science Lab / Alamy via Reuters.
DECRYPTION – Researchers have discovered a new brain system responsible for controlling the movements of the body as a whole. They specify a famous neurological pattern discovered in 1937.
He’s a funny guy, born in 1937 in the magazine Brain and having reached maturity thirteen years later, under the pen of a Canadian neurosurgeon: Penfield’s homunculus, a character with huge hands and lips, represents, according to their sizes and locations, the areas of the motor cortex that control movements from the body. This motor cortex forms like a headband going from one temple to the other, where would be successively maneuvered, from the temple to the top of the skull, the tongue, the face, the fingers, the hand, the shoulders, the trunk, the legs and finally the feet. Wilder Penfield did not claim to strictly represent reality: his homunculus is « a caricature » intended to serve as“cheat sheet”, he explained. The success of the strange little man cannot be denied, however: 86 years later, he remains present in neurology books.
But something had escaped Penfield. A “detail” unearthed by a team from Washington University…
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