Who is this important little guy?

 

homunculusWho, or what is this? Why are we talk­ing about him?

Let us give you a clue: his name in Homunculus.

Expla­na­tion: The cor­ti­cal Homuncu­lus is a phys­i­cal rep­re­sen­ta­tion of the human body, locat­ed with­in the brain. It is a neu­ro­log­i­cal “map” of the anatom­i­cal divi­sions of the body. And you can eas­i­ly notice which areas are over­rep­re­sent­ed, indi­cat­ing the most sen­si­tive areas in our bod­ies (because there are more nerves and because our brain devotes more resources to process infor­ma­tion from those nerves)

brainmap_HomunculusSee more detailed expla­na­tion Here.

 

More brain teas­er games:

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30 Comments

  1. Alvaro on October 4, 2006 at 11:37

    Watch this fun short animation:

    http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/flash/hom.html

    In short, the fig­ure shows what a man’s body would look like if each body part kept pro­por­tion to the area of the cor­tex of the brain involved with its sen­so­ry perception.



  2. eleanor on October 5, 2006 at 2:28

    that is hilar­i­ous! — I was mild­ly appre­hen­sive about whether or not they would omit cer­tain body parts — par­tic­u­lar­ly if it was for kids to see — but they cun­ning­ly glossed over the issue!



  3. Alvaro on October 5, 2006 at 8:18

    Yes, I had to be careful :-)



  4. avk rao on December 2, 2006 at 9:06

    The fun­ny face looks like a fun­ny fig­ure from AESOPES FABLES OR ARABIANNIGHTS
    BUT MAY REPRESENTA STAGE IN EVOLUTIN OFMAN BETWEN APE AND HOUS ERECTUS‑A V K RAO



  5. Alvaro on December 3, 2006 at 11:51

    Hi A V K, please check the lit­tle ani­ma­tion and enjoy it :-)



  6. e22 on August 28, 2007 at 1:26

    he is the lit­tle man in your head that caus­es all your visu­al activities.



  7. Alvaro on August 28, 2007 at 8:50

    e22: please check the visu­al animation :-)

    http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/flash/hom.html



  8. Rodrigo Fuenzalida on October 7, 2007 at 11:51

    This ugly and deformed man is a rep­re­sen­ta­tion of the degree of sen­si­tiv­i­ty of the sur­faces of our body, in means of the amount of cor­tex ded­i­cat­ed to each. The most big­ger body parts are the mor sen­si­tive, like the lips and hands. The small­er ones are the ons that require the less sen­si­tiv­i­ty of all, like our legs and back.



  9. Alvaro on October 7, 2007 at 3:37

    Great expla­na­tion, Rodri­go, thanks.



  10. joe on October 17, 2007 at 10:27

    ummmm…this isn’t a brain exer­cise of any kind, it’s a triv­ia question.



  11. FreeBee on October 18, 2007 at 6:47

    Now THAT explains why kiss­ing is so effec­tive. See the size of the mouth, espe­cial­ly the lips.
    Touch­ing a fel­low human being, by design, is some­thing plea­sur­able, because we need that for repro­duc­tion. Kiss­ing might be con­sid­ered just anoth­er form of touch­ing, but its effect is so much stronger than that of most oth­er activities.



  12. Alvaro on October 18, 2007 at 7:00

    Great point, FreeBee



  13. Beachgirl on October 22, 2007 at 10:33

    The homuncu­lus is also com­mon­ly used to describe the dis­tort­ed human fig­ure drawn to reflect the rel­a­tive space our body parts occu­py on the somatosen­so­ry cor­tex (sen­so­ry homuncu­lus) and the motor cor­tex (motor homuncu­lus). The lips, hands, feet and sex organs have more sen­so­ry neu­rons than oth­er parts of the body, so the homuncu­lus has cor­re­spond­ing­ly dis­tort­ed­ly large lips, hands, feet, and gen­i­tals. Well known in the field of neu­rol­o­gy, this is also com­mon­ly called ‘the lit­tle man inside the brain.’



  14. Beachgirl on October 22, 2007 at 10:36

    I saw the same ani­ma­tion last night on a show called “In the Liv­ing Body” on the Nation­al Geo­graph­ic channel.



  15. Alvaro on October 24, 2007 at 8:17

    Hel­lo Beach­girl: thanks for the head up!



  16. Jazz on November 6, 2007 at 8:40

    It is the species of man before evolv­ing into homo sapeans



  17. Alvaro on November 6, 2007 at 7:48

    Hel­lo Jazz, that would be quite fun­ny :-) check the ani­ma­tion and you’ll see what it is



  18. LuiJirou on December 8, 2007 at 11:11

    Would the size of some of Mr. Homuncu­lus’ body parts change with age, skill lev­el, or pro­fes­sion? Some­how, I pic­ture Norm Abram hav­ing larg­er hands and Gar­ri­son Keil­lor hav­ing a big­ger mouth. Sor­ry, Mr. Keil­lor. No pun intended.



  19. Alvaro on December 10, 2007 at 7:52

    Indeed, it would. A pianist would devote a larg­er area to receiv­ing infor­ma­tion from the fin­gers, and so on. That is the kind of research that Merzenich ad oth­ers did with mon­keys, and saw clear­ly that effect. With humans there is of course less infor­ma­tion, but enough data to sug­gest how it applies too



  20. JANICE on December 26, 2007 at 2:08

    fun­ny, enter­tain­ing and def­i­nite­ly edu­ca­tion­al… no won­der my hands feel big,tee-hee…



  21. Alvaro on December 27, 2007 at 8:46

    espe­cial­ly your fingers!

    glad you enjoy the site.



  22. adrian on January 16, 2008 at 6:19

    the answer is hilarious



  23. adriana on February 22, 2008 at 6:32

    it is Pen­field­’s Homuncu­lus it is an schemat­ic design of the cor­ti­cal rep­re­sen­ta­tion of the motor area in the pari­etal lobe. I saw it in physiology.



  24. Karyn on June 20, 2008 at 3:44

    His name is Chudler.



  25. Karyn on June 20, 2008 at 3:49

    Homuncu­lus is a fig­ment of some­one’s imagination.



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