What is postcentral gyrus?
Cerebrum, which is the largest area of the human brain, contains a central sulcus, a fold that divides two large areas, frontal and parietal lobes. On the parietal lobe, just behind this sulcus, is postcentral gyrus, a large ridge that leads across the top and down the sides of the brain, parallel to the central sulcus. This area of the brain is also called the primary somatosensory area and serves the purpose of detecting touch information from the whole body. For this reason, this gyrus can be considered as part of the somatic sensory system, along with mixes and nerve cells spread throughout the body that detect touch. Nerve cells from the left body send information to the right half of the brain and vice versa. Each half also has a homonculus arrangement, where the adjacent parts of the body have their seninformation ory integrated in the neighboring parts of the postcentral gyrus topographic way. When these brain cells are mapped the corresponding parts of the body they represent, the result appears to be a representation of humano bodies. The body of the body with multiple nerve cells is administered with a larger number of neurons dedicated to this gyro.
Three different types of cells form postcentral gyrus, which are referred to as Brodmann regions 3, 1 and 2. Each area processes different types of touch information, while Brodmann's areas 3 and 1 cooperate to determine the texture and Brodmann areas 3 and 2 determine the sizes and shapes of the items touched. Each area of Brodmann projects into another area immediately behind it, with Brodmann Area 2signals into a secondary somatosensory cortex, which further integrates a sense of contact with another sensory input.
Many mental deficits related to the feeling of touch may be caused by damage to postcentral gyrus. Damage to the hemisphere processing information from the dominant hand can leadto complete neglect of information from this hemisphere. Other types of damage may result in Astereognosia or inability to recognize objects when they touch them.