Motor Cortex Microcircuits (Frontiers in Brain Microcircuits Series)

• Main Author: Takehsi Kaneko (auth)
• Other Authors: Gordon M. G Shepherd (auth), Michael Brecht (auth), Nicholas Hatsopoulos (auth)
• Format: Electronic Book Chapter
• Language: English
• Published: Frontiers Media SA 2015
• Series: Frontiers Research Topics
• Subjects: Neurosciences; Motor Cortex; intracortical connectivity; corticospinal neurons; directional tuning; motor control
• Online Access: DOAB: download the publication; DOAB: description of the publication

How does the motor cortex enable mammals to generate accurate, complex, and purposeful movements? A cubic millimeter of motor cortex contains roughly ~10^5 cells, an amazing ~4 Km of axons and ~0.4 Km of dendrites, somehow wired together with ~10^9 synapses. Corticospinal neurons (a.k.a. Betz cells,...