The Intelligent Movement Machine An Ethological Perspective on the Primate Motor System

In The Intelligent Movement Machine: An Ethological Perspective on the Primate Motor System, Michael Graziano offers a fundamentally new theory of motor cortex organization: the rendering of the movement repertoire onto the cortex. The action repertoire of an animal is highly dimensional, whereas the cortical sheet is two-dimensional. Rendering the action space onto the cortex therefore results in a complex pattern, explaining the otherwise inexplicable details of the motor cortex organization. This clearly written book book includes a complete history of motor cortex research from its discovery to the present, a discussion of the major issues in motor cortex research, and an account of recent experiments that led to Graziano's "action map" view. Though focused on the motor cortex, the book includes a range of topics from an explanation of how primates put food in their mouths, to the origins of social beahvior such as smiling and laughing, to the mysterious link between movement disorders and autism. This book is written for a general audience, and should be of interest to experts, students, and the scientific lay.

1 - Introduction
2 - Early experiments on motor cortex
3 - An integrative map of the body
4 - Hierarchy in the cortical motor system
5 - Neuronal control of movement
6 - What can be learned from electrical stimulation?
7 - Complex movements evoked by electrical stimulation of motor cortex
8 - The match between natural neuronal properties and stimulation-evoked movement
9 - The movement repertoire of monkeys
10 - Dimensionality reduction as a theory of motor cortex organization
11 - Feedback remapping and the cortical-spinal-muscular system
12 - Social implications of motor control