Cortical Homunculus
Cortical Homunculus
The cortical homunculus is used to describe "the body within the brain", a distorted human drawn or sculpted to reflect the relative space various sensory body parts occupy on the motor cortex(output) and the somato-sensory cortex(input):
The lips, hands, feet, and genitals are enlarged, to reflect a larger proportion of neurons processing data from them.
fMRI scans of people reading a verb that refers to an arm or leg action causes increased blood flow and activity in the related part of the motor cortex. This cortex transforms visual information into motor commands, plans, coordinates, guides, and controls the muscles of each body movement.
