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Neural Computation, Vol 10, 1983-1985, Copyright © 1998 by The MIT Press

NOTES

Why Does the Somatosensory Homunculus Have Hand Next to Face and Feet Next to Genitals?: An Hypothesis

Martha J. Farah

The somatotopic mapping of the body surface onto its cortical representation is a paradigm case of topographic mapping in the nervous system. It has functioned as the model case for physiological studies of plasticity in cortical maps (Kaas, 1991; Ramachandran, Stewart, & Rogers-Ramachandran, 1992a, 1992b) and computational studies of self-organization (Pearson, Finkel, & Edelman, 1987; Merzenich, 1987; Willshaw & von der Malsburg, 1976). However, the map is not perfect. There are two major discontinuities: the hands and face of the homunculus are adjacent to one another, as are the genitals and feet (Penfield & Rasmussen, 1950; Ramachandran, Stewart, & Rogers-Ramachandran, 1992b). Why is this?


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