Vernon B. Mountcastle, M.D., was University Professor of Neuroscience, Emeritus, at the Zanvyl Krieger Mind/Brain Institute of Johns Hopkins University and winner of the 1998 National Academy of Sciences Award in Neurosciences.

• 1. Perception and the World of Somesthesis 2. The Evolution and Structure of the Hand 3. General Features of Somatic Afferent Systems 4. Sensory Innervation of the Primate Hand 5. Large-Fibered Peripheral Interface 6. Dorsal Systems and the Dorsal Column Nuclear Complex 7. Small-Fibered Peripheral Interface 8. Ascending Spinal Cord Systems of Intrinsic Origin 9. Dual Functions of the Dorsal Thalamus 10. Postcentral Somatic Sensory Areas in Primates 11. Dynamic Neural Operations in Somatic Sensibility 12. Dynamic Neural Operations the Sense of Flutter Vibration 13. Parietal Lateral System and Somatic Sensibility 14. Parietal Frontal Sensory Motor Transition 15. Adaptive Reorganizations of Central Somatic Sensory Networks 16. Haptic Sense As Substitute for Vision

What is so special about primate hands? Few, if any, are more qualified to answer this question than Vernon Mountcastle. He and his colleagues have been the leading students of somatic sensibility (‘somesthesis’) in primates for over half a century. In The Sensory Hand, he offers an overview of a lifetime of influential, and sometimes controversial, research. The massive treatise begins with a review of the evolution and structure of the human hand. Mountcastle then ventures forth on a journey from manual behavior to tactile receptors all the way to the cerebral cortex. Through sixteen lengthy chapters, he reviews each level of the somatosensory pathway in rich detail… Mountcastle does a masterful job integrating the basics of what we know about how sensory information travels from the hand to the highest regions of the brain. Although there are a few excellent books on the evolution of the hands and how we use them, this is the only sophisticated book on the neural basis of how the hand works.