Classical studies of mammalian movement control define a prominent role for the primary motor cortex. Investigating the mouse whisker system, we found an additional and equally direct pathway for cortical motor control driven by the primary somatosensory cortex. Whereas activity in primary motor cortex directly evokes exploratory whisker protraction, primary somatosensory cortex directly drives...

Introduction: The primary somatosensory cortex has an important role in nociceptive sensory-discriminative processing. Altered peripheral inputs produced by deafferentation or by long-term changes in levels of afferent stimulation can result in plasticity of cortex. Capsaicin-induced depletion of C-fiber afferents results in plasticity of the somatosensory system. Plasticity includes short-term...

Accumulating evidence demonstrates that similar neural circuits are activated during the first-hand experience of pain and the observation of pain in others. However, most functional MRI studies did not detect signal change in the primary somatosensory cortex during pain empathy. To test if the perception of pain in others involves the primary somatosensory cortex, neuromagnetic oscillatory act...

Abstract The neural representation of the body is easily altered by integration multiple sensory signals in brain. “rubber hand illusion” (RHI) one most popular experimental paradigms to investigate this phenomenon. During illusion, a feeling ownership rubber created. Some studies have shown that somatosensory processing brain attenuated when RHI occurs. However, it unknown where attenuation He...

UNLABELLED Studies of human primary somatosensory cortex (S1) have placed a strong emphasis on the cortical representation of the hand and the propensity for plasticity therein. Despite many reports of group differences and experience-dependent changes in cortical digit somatotopy, relatively little work has considered the variability of these maps across individuals and to what extent this det...

There is growing interest concerning the ways in which the human body, both one's own and that of others, is represented in the developing human brain. In two experiments with 7-month-old infants, we employed advances in infant magnetoencephalography (MEG) brain imaging to address novel questions concerning body representations in early development. Experiment 1 evaluated the spatiotemporal org...

Glutamate transmission is critical for controlling cortical activity, but the specific contribution of the different isoforms of vesicular glutamate transporters in subcortical pathways to the neocortex is largely unknown. To determine the distribution and neocortical projections of vesicular glutamate transporter2 (Vglut2)-containing neurons, we used in situ hybridization and injections of the...

Figure 1. The gross anatomy of the brain is shown from a lateral (a) and medial (b) view. The wrinkled outer surface that covers the majority of the brain is the cerebral cortex. In panel (a) labels illustrate some of the areas of localized function including primary motor cortex on the precentral gyrus (M1) and primary somatosensory cortex on the postcentral gyrus (S1). Other primary sensory c...

Reinforcing effects of reward on action are well established, but possible effects on sensory function are less well explored. Here, using functional magnetic resonance imaging, we assessed whether reward can influence somatosensory judgments and modulate activity in human somatosensory cortex. Participants discriminated electrical somatosensory stimuli on an index finger with correct performan...

The efferent cortico-cortical projections of the motorcortical larynx area were studied in three rhesus monkeys (Macaca mulatta), using biotin dextranamine as anterograde tracer. Identification of the larynx area was made with the help of electrical brain stimulation and indirect laryngoscopy. Heavy projections were found into the surrounding ventral and dorsal premotor cortex (areas 6V and D),...