Parallel Cortical Networks Formed by Modular Organization of Primary Motor Cortex Outputs

In primates, the refinement of motor behaviors, in particular hand use, is associated with the establishment of more direct projections from primary motor cortex (M1) onto cervical motoneurons [1, 2] and the appearance of additional premotor and sensory cortical areas [3]. All of these areas have reciprocal connections with M1 [4-7]. Thus, during the evolution of the sensorimotor network, the number of interlocutors with which M1 interacts has tremendously increased. It is not clear how these additional interconnections are organized in relation to one another within the hand representation of M1. This is important because the organization of connections between M1 and phylogenetically newer and specialized cortical areas is likely to be key to the increased repertoire of hand movements in primates. In cebus monkeys, we used injections of retrograde tracers into the hand representation of different cortical areas of the sensorimotor network (ventral and dorsal premotor areas [PMv and PMd], supplementary motor area [SMA], and posterior parietal cortex [area 5]), and we analyzed the pattern of labeled neurons within the hand representation of M1. Instead of being uniformly dispersed across M1, neurons sending projections to each distant cortical area were largely segregated in different subregions of M1. These data support the view that primates split the cortical real estate of M1 into modules, each preferentially interconnected with a particular cortical area within the sensorimotor network. This modular organization could sustain parallel processing of interactions with multiple specialized cortical areas to increase the behavioral repertoire of the hand.