Premotor cortex in man: evidence for innervation of proximal limb muscles.

Fourteen patients with frontal CT-lesions involving premotor cortex showed moderate weakness of contralateral shoulder and hip muscles. This premotor syndrome in man resembles that described for lesions of brainstem pathways in monkeys, except that axial musculature was not disturbed when these lesions were unilateral. Medial extent of the lesion involving the SMA was accompanied by additional slight limb-kinetic apraxia.