Motor Somatosensory Maps

As we talked about on Sunday, the parietal lobe of the brain contains a particularly interesting region known as the somatosensory map. These sensory maps are unique for every person and each has body parts placed onto a region of the cortex that represents it, with size proportional to cortical representation and sensitivity through sense input. If you do something that requires quick and complex figer movements touching something, like playing instruments or working with your hands, your homunculus will have larger hand representational areas, leading to the opportunity for more connection between that region and different parts of the brain (even other regions on the same map) This map is one of 8 and counting homunculi contained in the brain. The other important and closely nested map is part of the motor cortex which has a similar map but codes for the movement of different parts of the body.

What would your Motorsensory maps look like? Think about it as you do your normal routine... What parts of your body do you use the most? What parts of the body feel and sense things the most?