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€€€blogdopg.blogspot.com/2007/02/penfield-e-os-homnculos.

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€€February 22, 2007
BLOG DO PG
Penfield and homunculi
€€€In the 1940s, Wilder Penfield, a brilliant Canadian neurosurgeon, attended to
patients with medically intractable epilepsy. It is known that in epilepsy, bef
ore a crisis, patients may experience an "aura" that is, a kind of warning that
she is about to occur. Penfield thought that if I could cause this aura with a m
ild electrical current in the brain of patients, then find the focus of the seiz
ure. And that with the surgical removal of brain tissue affected, could also cur
e them.
€€€Aware of the sick, while anesthetized, Penfield opened their skulls to find a
nd remove the brain identified as epileptogenic foci. An experimental surgical t
echnique in which he began collecting success stories. And that led to an extrem
ely important discovery. Electrically stimulating the temporal lobe, situations
experienced by patients (often overlooked) were those moments they remembered. W
hat did it mean to say that there is a physical basis for memory.
€€€Continuing their investigations, Penfield, based on information he obtained f
rom his patients during surgical procedures, began to identify the relationship
of brain cortical areas with different regions of the human body. Until you get
a brain mapping in which the various body regions were represented in the cortex
, but are different in size and how they are in the body. And, to facilitate und
erstanding of this fact, the idealized figures of cortical homunculi.
€€€A sensory homunculus homunculus and a motor. The first depicted in the lips,
cheeks and fingertips disproportionately large for being the most sensitive part
s of the body and therefore require higher cortical areas. And the second with t
he mouth, tongue and fingers, especially the thumbs, also surpassed by the body
occur in these regions more complex movements, which are related to calling and
hold.
€€€In the cortex, areas are not available in the order in which regions are actu
ally represented in the body (see figure below), which contributes to making suc
h homunculi even more grotesque.
€€€Click here to visit a Brazilian website, where you can read testimonials abou
t amputees' phantom limb. " A phenomenon that Wilder Penfield, with brain mappin
g, helped to understand.
€€€# Posted by Paulo Gurgel @ 06:04

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