Functional organization of the human primary somatosensory cortex: A stereo-electroencephalography study

Abstract

Objective: The classical homunculus of the human primary somatosensory cortex (S1) established by Penfield has mainly portrayed the functional organization of convexial cortex, namely Brodmann area (BA) 1. However, little is known about the functions in fissural cortex including BA2 and BA3. We aim at drawing a refined and detailed somatosensory homunculus of the entire S1.

Methods: We recruited 20 patients with drug-resistant focal epilepsy who underwent stereo-electroencephalography for preoperative assessments. Direct electrical stimulation was performed for functional mapping. Montreal Neurological Institute coordinates of the stimulation sites lying in S1 were acquired.

Results: Stimulation of 177 sites in S1 yielded 149 positive sites (84%), most of which were located in the sulcal cortex. The spatial distribution of different body-part representations across the S1 surface revealed that the gross medial-to-lateral sequence of body representations within the entire S1 was consistent with the classical "homunculus". And we identified several unreported body-part representations from the sulcal cortex, such as forehead, deep elbow and wrist joints, and some dorsal body regions.

Conclusions: Our results reveal general somatotopical characteristics of the entire S1 cortex and differences with the previous works of Penfield.

Significance: The classical S1 homunculus was extended by providing further refinement and additional detail.

Keywords: Brodmann area; Direct electrical stimulation; Functional organization; Homunculus; Primary somatosensory cortex; Stereo-electroencephalography.