Each part of the body has its own nerve cell area in the brain — we therefore have a map of our bodies in our heads. The functional significance of these maps is largely unclear. What effects they can have is now shown by Ruhr-University Bochum (Germany) neuroscientists through reaction time measurements combined with learning experiments and “computational modeling.” They have been able to demonstrate that inhibitory influences of neighboring “finger nerve cells” affect the reaction time of a finger.