Functional Analogs of the Motor and Premotor Areas of Neocortex in Developing White Rats

To study functional characteristics of the brain cortex motor areas in developing white rats and to determine their interlocation in rat pups at the different age and at critical terms of formation of motor representations in the process of postnatal development, mapping of neocortex frontal areas at the age up to 1.5 months was performed using intracortical microstimulation method. It has been shown that for first 10 days of postnatal development the microstimulation is not effective to evoke corticomotor reactions. An earlier appearance of functional activity of the non-primary motor cortex has been established, as compared with that of the primary motor cortex. It is suggested that there occurs a parallel, but heterochronous formation of primary and non-primary motor areas at the frontal neocortex territory.