|
Medical Definition of Somesthetic area
1. Somatosensory cortex, the region of the cerebral cortex receiving the somatic sensory radiation from the ventrobasal nucleus of the thalamus; it represents the primary cortical processing mechanism for sensory information originating at the body surfaces (touch) and in deeper tissues such as muscle, tendons, and joint capsules (position sense); it corresponds approximately to Brodmann's areas 1, 2, 3 on the postcentral gyrus. Synonym: somesthetic area. (05 Mar 2000)