PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Michel Rijntjes
AU  - Christian Dettmers
AU  - Christian Büchel
AU  - Stefan Kiebel
AU  - Richard S. J. Frackowiak
AU  - Cornelius Weiller
TI  - A Blueprint for Movement: Functional and Anatomical Representations in the Human Motor System
AID  - 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.19-18-08043.1999
DP  - 1999 Sep 15
TA  - The Journal of Neuroscience
PG  - 8043--8048
VI  - 19
IP  - 18
4099  - http://www.jneurosci.org/content/19/18/8043.short
4100  - http://www.jneurosci.org/content/19/18/8043.full
SO  - J. Neurosci.1999 Sep 15; 19
AB  - Despite a clear somatotopic organization of the motor cortex, a movement can be learned with one extremity and performed with another. This suggests that there exists a limb-independent coding for movements. To dissociate brain regions coding for movement parameters from those relevant to the chosen effector, subjects wrote their signature with their dominant index finger and ipsilateral big toe, and we determined those areas activated by both conditions using functional magnetic resonance imaging. The results show that movement parameters for this highly trained movement are stored in secondary sensorimotor cortices of the extremity with which it is usually performed, i.e., the dominant hand, including dorsal and ventral lateral premotor cortices. These areas can be accessed by the foot and are therefore functionally independent from the primary representation of the effector. Thus, somatotopy in secondary structures in the human motor system seems to be defined functionally, and not on the basis of anatomical representations.