Researched
Penfield's brain map
Wilder Penfield stimulated the exposed brains of awake patients and mapped which strip of cortex moves or feels each body part: the 'homunculus'.
Open in the interactive tree →His 1937 map with Edwin Boldrey, made during epilepsy surgery, gave far more cortex to the hands and face than to the trunk. Such motor-cortex maps are the target of today's brain-computer interface implants.
Prerequisites
- Brain localization (Broca)1861
- EEG1924
Unlocks
- First implanted BCIs2004Implants are placed over the motor-cortex areas that Penfield's map located
- Brain-computer interfaces2023Decoding movement and speech uses cortex areas first mapped by Penfield