Unilateral movements are not only controled by the contralateral cerebral hemishpere

What is it about?

Move your right hand. Done? Well, the left part of your brain is responsible for this "motor command". Yet, if I were measuring your brain activity while you were moving, I would have observed increased activation in both the right and the left hemispheres. This represents the main result reported in this paper. Some interesting discussions are provided, explaining this bilateral, nay, symmetrical activation of the brain during unilateral movements.

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Why is it important?

One important take-home message here: neuroimaging techniques can record similar neural signatures for different brain areas (i.e., a bilateral brain activation in this study), while the underlying functional explanation for each individual brain area could be different. Interested?! Read more in the discussion section of this paper!