The Jacksonian hierarchical organization of the central nervous system was rebutted by the heterarchical concept that represents the dissemination of signing and execution of will among many neural regions within higher or lower levels within the central nervous system. Therefore, the intention to perform a task can be applied by a disseminated networks utilizing reciprocal connectivity. There are different cortical areas thought to be crucial in providing source for signing and execution the will. For example, the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) contributes to our will by being involved in integrating components of applying our will. The ACC is highly connected with association cortex e.g. the prefrontal cortex (PFC) that has a cognitive and…show more content… “Stroop-like color naming” task, it has been found that ACC produces signal immediately to call another cortical regions e.g. dorsolateral PFC and inferior parietal cortex to carry out a planned procedure. In the Stroop task, it has been found that PFC is required in the initial period of preparing for the cognitive process; however, ACC is required in the real reaction to different stimuli. Therefore, patient with cingulate area lesion exhibits difficulty in automatic starting movement or speech, and he may be unable to inhibit movements when they are activated by extrinsic stimuli, even his will does not want to do that, such as the alien-hand syndrome . However, in another study where individuals had to start a hand movement volitionally, they received impulses that suppress their hand motion. It was reported that small part of medial PFC close to ACC in conjunction with anterior insular cortex is responsible for willed suppression of movement which is referred to “free won’t”. The cooperation between AIC and ACC infers that the activity in the AIC includes the will of movement that is represented in the ACC. Moreover, emotional behaviors can happen pre-consciously by activating of the ACC alone without AIC…show more content… M1 is considered to be the last pathway for volitional movement . Layer 5 of M1 contains pyramidal tract neurons that have principal projections to the spinal cord via corticospinal tracts which important in skilled voluntary movements i.e. fractionated hand movements. In addition, M1 has the uppermost amount of direct monosynaptic inputs to motor neurons in the lateral motor nucleus in the ventral horn of the cervical spinal cord. These projections, which are called corticomotoneuronal cells, guide our movements that need synergetic control of one or multiple joints performing the movement. M1 is considered an important part in disseminating the “will” in an accurate manner. It does not work alone, but it works incorporation with other cortical areas such as basal ganglia and cerebellum within a distributed network to refine output across “stations” where information is processed and directed to the brainstem and spinal cord (Haggard,
