SENSORY DISCRIMINATION IN MONKEY, CHIMPANZEE AND MAN AFTER LESIONS OF THE PARIETAL LOBE

Abstract

The problem of localization of function in the parietal lobe remains essentially as it was two or three decades ago.¹The results of the many clinical studies and the few animal experiments, excellently executed and employing a variety of ingenious methods, disagree with respect to many features of the localization of somatic sensory function. The extent of the cortex involved in somatic sensation and the extent of the role played by the thalamus at various phylogenetic levels are still uncertain, as is the question of bilateral representation. It is not known whether different modalities of somatic sensation are separately localized over the face of the cortex or whether, as is a priori more likely, levels of sensory response are separately represented. It is perhaps significant that in recent years no diagram maker has had the temerity—and diagram makers do not usually lack that quality—to offer a functional map of