Scientific American:

By Nico U.F. Dosenbach

A pillar of every neuroscience textbook, the classic “homunculus” has just gone through a radical reIn my first neuroscience course at Columbia University, I learned about the homunculus. This “little man” is depicted as an upside-down representation of the human body moving from toe to head in a portion of the cerebral cortex that controls movement. Wilder Penfield, the trailblazing Canadian-American neurosurgeon, created the homunculus metaphor after mapping areas of the human brain by using direct electrical stimulation in awake patients in the 1930s.

From this work, a nurse working with Penfield created one of science’s most iconic illustrations. It shows the homunculus stretched out over the brain’s surface, a small body with enlarged mouth, hands and feet, each part exaggerated in proportion to the amount of neural real estate occupied. Later three-dimensional representations of the homunculus depict it as a grotesque, hairless goblin with enormous lips, hands and feet. The somewhat frightening creature is prominent in every neuroscience textbook and even has its own Dungeons & Dragons character, with bat wings for good measure.vision

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