Motor cortex articles from across Nature Portfolio

Little is known about how the brain encodes—and ultimately drives—the tongue’s 3D deformation. Here, the authors successfully decoded complex tongue deformation from sensorimotor cortex neurons, suggesting a cortical representation of 3D tongue shape.

Large scale neural recordings show that task-related activity is observed across neural circuits. Here, the authors have identified a network mechanism that promotes distributed activity in the cortex during decision-making via task-independent synapses.

Using depth electrodes in human patients, scientists at the Mayo Clinic found that the map of the body in motor cortex extends deep into the central sulcus. Unexpectedly, the nonsomatotopic ‘Rolandic motor association’ (RMA) area interrupts this organization.

Corticospinal activity is temporally coded with precise movements in mice. Here the authors investigate the role of corticospinal neuron activity in motor cortex during the learning of either a precise or imprecise task.

Functional MRI studies across ages show that the classic homunculus of the motor cortex in humans is in fact discontinuous, alternating with action control-linked regions termed the somato-cognitive action network.