Each part of the body has its own nerve cell area in the brain – we therefore have a map of our body in our head. However, the functional significance of these maps is largely unclear. What effects they can have is now shown by scientists of Ruhr-Universität Bochum and the Bernstein Focus Neuronal Basis of Learning in the project “State dependencies of learning” through reaction time measurements combined with learning experiments and “computational modelling”. They have been able to demonstrate that inhibitory influences of neighbouring “finger nerve cells” affect the reaction time of a finger. The fingers on the outside – i.e. the thumb and little finger - therefore react faster than the middle finger, which is exposed to the “cross fire” of two neighbours on each side. Through targeted learning, this speed handicap can be compensated, as the working group led by Hubert Dinse (Neural Plasticity Lab at the Institute for Neuroral Computation) report in the current issue of PNAS.

Read more in the complete press release of the Ruhr Universität Bochum.

Image at the preview page: Gerd Altmann, pixelio.de, mod. by BCOS