Page "Wilder Penfield" Paragraph 9

This technique also allowed him to create maps of the sensory and motor cortices of the brain ( see cortical homunculus ) showing their connections to the various limbs and organs of the body.

These maps are still used today, practically unaltered.

Along with Herbert Jasper, he published this work in 1951 ( 2nd ed., 1954 ) as the landmark Epilepsy and the Functional Anatomy of the Human Brain.

This work contributed a great deal to understanding the lateralization of brain function.

Penfield's maps showed considerable overlap between regions ( i. e. the motor region controlling muscles in the hand sometimes also controlled muscles in the upper arm and shoulder ) a feature which he put down to individual variation in brain size and localisation ; we now know that this is due to the fractured somatotropy of the motor cortex.