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From the Archives
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The functional organization of the motor system in the monkey. I. The effects of bilateral pyramidal lesions. II. The effects of lesions of the descending brainstem pathways. By Donald G. Lawrence and Henricus G.J.M. Kuypers. Brain 1968; 91: 1–14 and Brain 1968; 91: 15–36. (From the Department of Anatomy and Division of Neurology, Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH, USA).
Donald Lawrence and Hans Kuypers discard the long-standing notion that the pyramidal tracts have almost exclusive control of limb movements. Instead, their experiments with selective lesions make clear that the corticospinal system ‘provides the capacity for further fractionation of movements’, as exemplified by independent digit movements—at least in the monkey, whose manual dexterity is not very different from that in man.
Here, they provide one of the last pieces needed to complete the jigsaw puzzle of how the brain controls voluntary movements. The principle of crossed connections had already
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