Researchers Discover Our 'Motor Cortex' Actually Links to Other Parts of the Bra...

While medical textbooks teach that our movements are controlled solely by the brain's motor cortex — that may be wrong, reports NPR, with another area keeping track of the entire body.

"Scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have found that previously overlooked areas of the brain's motor cortex appear to link control of specific muscles with information about the entire body and brain."

As a result, the act of, say, reaching for a cup of coffee can directly influence blood pressure and heart rate. And the movement is seamlessly integrated into brain systems involved in planning, goals and emotion. Textbooks, though, still portray a motor cortex in which "the region that controls your finger is not going to be connected to a region [that asks], 'what am I going to do today?' " says Dr. Nico Dosenbach, an author of the study and an associate professor of neurology and radiology.

But the MRI data leaves little doubt that "there is this interconnected system," says Evan Gordon, an assistant professor of radiology and the study's first author. "It always was there, but we had not perceived it because of our training, because of the things we learned in the first neuroscience class that we ever took...." There's two interleaved systems," Dosenbach says. So right below an area controlling the fingers, for example, the team would find an area involved in "whole body integrative action...."

The new view of primary motor cortex may help explain how the brain solves a difficult problem, says Peter Strick, chair of neurobiology at the University of Pittsburgh. "Even simple movements require nuanced control of all organ systems," he says. "You have to control heart rate. You have to control blood pressure. You have to control so called fight and flight responses...." A system that weaves together movement and mental states also could explain why our posture changes with our mood, or why exercise tends to make us feel better.

"How you move can have an impact on how you feel. And how you feel is going to have an impact on how you move," Strick says. "You know, my mother would tell me, 'stand up straight, you'll feel better.' And maybe that's true."
Thanks to Slashdot reader Tony Isaac for sharing the article.