Motor Areas of the Cerebral Cortex-New Vistas

On the basis of morphological and functional studies, it is now established that there exist multiple motor representation areas in the frontal lobe of subhuman primates. Recent development of analysis on cerebral critical organization in human subjects, utilizing novel techniques of PET and MRI, provides evidence of corresponding motor areas. Each area has its unique sources of inputs from the thalamus and from other parts of the cerebral cortex. To understand functional roles of these multiple motor areas, it is necessary to study neural activity while subjects are performing a variety of motor tasks. In view of high accuracy in spatial and temporal resolution, the analysis of single cells in relation to specific aspects of motor behavior remains to be a powerful research technique. It is with this technique that a number of novel concepts on functional roles of multiple motor areas have been proposed.