Cerebral cortex: functional areas and clinical correlations

• Cerebral cortex: surface layer of grey matter covering the cerebral hemisphere, classified functionally into motor, sensory and association areas.
• Each hemisphere controls the contralateral half of the body: it sends motor commands to, and receives sensory input from, the opposite side.

Types of Functional Areas

• Motor areas: give origin to the corticospinal and corticonuclear projection fibres; concerned with motor function.
• Sensory areas: receive afferent fibres from thalamic relay nuclei; concerned with sensory function.
• Association areas: not primarily motor or sensory but associative, integrative and cognitive; occupy over 75% of the total cortical surface area.

Functional Areas by Lobe

Functional areas of the cerebral cortex