Study the organization of the internal capsule. The areas of the CNS that most immediately influence, direct, and modulate the activity of ventral horn cells constitute the motor systems of the brain. To be sure, dividing the CNS into sensory and motor systems is arbitrary. Although making such a division may be counterproductive to understanding the integrative function of the nervous system, it is not without pedagogic merit. Their axons remain within the cerebral cortex.
Pyramidal cells are the projection or output neurons of the cortex.
Their axons end, for example, in other areas of the cortex, in the diencephalon, brain stem, and spinal cord. The pyramidal tract originates from several cortical areas. The precentral gyrus, similar to the postcentral gyrus, is somatotopically organized. The foot and limb are represented on the medial surface of the hemisphere and the trunk, upper limb, hand and face, on the lateral surface. They descend through the internal capsule into the cerebral peduncle .