Areas providing fine motor movement require ______ amount of cortical tissue.

• A. Smaller
• B. Equal
• C. Larger
• D. No

Answer: (C)

Fine motor movement demands precise and intricate control of small muscles, like those in the hands and fingers. To achieve that level of precision, more cortical tissue is devoted to these tasks. The motor cortex has a disproportionally large representation for areas controlling the hands and face, which reflects the need for many neurons to plan, coordinate, and fine-tune movements and to integrate sensory feedback from touch and proprioception. More cortical tissue means more computational power for detailed motor programs, sequencing, and graded force and timing. In contrast, larger muscle groups used in gross movements require less cortical detail per movement, so their representation is relatively smaller. Thus, fine motor control needs a larger amount of cortical tissue.