Neuromagnetic somatosensory homunculus: a non-invasive approach in humans

The somatosensory homunculus has been identified during stimulation of median (at wrist and elbow), femoral, tibial and pudendal nerves of the left hemibody via the neuromagnetic imaging technique. The somatic representations of different body districts have been localized in the somatosensory cortex, by means of an equivalent dipole localization algorhythm. Dipole locations agree with the well-known somatotopic organization obtained with invasive techniques. The proposed method is, therefore, an important investigation tool for studies on normal and diseased subjects.