Global activation of primary motor cortex during voluntary movements in humans

Objective: The primary motor cortex (M1) forms the executive part in the functional hierarchy of the motor system and is characterized by a somatotopic organization of body representations. While it is known that M1 efferent activity leads to movement execution in contralateral body parts, it appears that motor control is achieved by distributed processing of multimodal inputs and motor commands. In this study we wanted to assess functional implications of the distributed character of the human motor system with particular respect to the primary motor areas. Methods: Fourteen healthy right-handed volunteers part…