Representation of Afferent Signals from Forearm Muscle and Cutaneous Nerves in the Primary Somatosensory Cortex of the Macaque Monkey

Proprioception is one’s overall sense of the relative positions and movements of the various parts of one’s body. The primary somatosensory cortex (SI) is involved in generating the proprioception by receiving peripheral sensory inputs from both cutaneous and muscle afferents. In particular, area 3a receives input from muscle afferents and areas 3b and 1 from cutaneous afferents. However, segregation of two sensory inputs to these cortical areas has not been evaluated quantitatively because of methodological difficulties in distinguishing the incoming signals. To overcome this, we applied electrical stimulation separately to two forearm nerves innervating muscle (deep radial nerve) and skin (superficial radial nerve), and examined the spatiotemporal distribution of sensory evoked potentials (SEPs) in SI of anaesthetized macaques. The SEPs arising from the deep radial nerve were observed exclusively at the bottom of central sulcus (CS), which was identified as area 3a using histological reconstruction. In contrast, SEPs evoked by stimulation of the superficial radial nerve were observed in the superficial part of SI, identified as areas 3b and 1. In addition to these earlier, larger potentials, we also found small and slightly delayed SEPs evoked by cutaneous nerve stimulation in area 3a. Coexistence of the SEPs from both deep and superficial radial nerves suggests that area 3a could integrate muscle and cutaneous signals to shape proprioception.