X-Message-Number: 11419
Date: Mon, 15 Mar 1999 19:58:15 -0500
From: Jan Coetzee <>
Subject: Muscles and brains!

NEUROBIOLOGY:
Memory for Order Found in the
Motor Cortex

Ingrid Wickelgren

On page 1752, a team of neuroscientists reports that
neurons in the motor cortex appear to do far more than simply
orchestrate movements: They can
help recognize and remember the sequence of events in time, at least as
a prelude to movement.
The researchers trained monkeys on a task that requires memorizing the
order of events in time
and found neurons in the motor cortex that showed an abrupt increase in
firing only when a spot
arrived in a certain place in the sequence, no matter what its location.
If the findings hold up, it
may mean that the information needed to perform complex cognitive tasks
is distributed very
widely in the brain. In that event, prospects for recovering from brain
injuries may someday be
brighter. If healthy areas share some functions of the damaged brain
areas, clinicians may be
able to boost those functions and stimulate more complete recovery.
=======================================================

J.C.

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