Cortical homunculus
Cortical Homunculus
The Cortical Homunculus (pronunciation: kor-ti-kal ho-mun-kyu-lus) is a physical representation of the human body, located within the brain. It is used to illustrate the concept of somatotopic organization, the spatial distribution of body parts representation in the brain.
Etymology
The term "Cortical Homunculus" is derived from Latin, where "cortex" means "bark" or "shell", referring to the outer layer of the brain, and "homunculus" means "little man".
Description
The Cortical Homunculus is a distorted representation of the human body, based on the neurological "map" of the areas and proportions of the brain dedicated to processing motor functions, or sensory functions, for different parts of the body. The concept of the homunculus is used in scientific disciplines such as neurology and psychology to describe the distorted scale model of a human drawn or sculpted to reflect the relative space human body parts occupy on the somatosensory cortex (the "sensory homunculus") and the motor cortex (the "motor homunculus").
Related Terms
- Somatosensory Cortex: The main sensory receptive area for the sense of touch.
- Motor Cortex: The region of the cerebral cortex involved in the planning, control, and execution of voluntary movements.
- Neurology: The branch of medicine dealing with disorders of the nervous system.
- Psychology: The scientific study of the human mind and its functions.
See Also
External links
- Medical encyclopedia article on Cortical homunculus
- Wikipedia's article - Cortical homunculus
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