The functions of the cingulate motor areas have not yet been systematically studied, though may be involved in emotionally driven behaviours like the limbic laugh.

SMA proper in monkeys has now been confined to a region on the crown of the hemisphere and extending partly onto the medial wall, just anterior to the primary motor leg representation.

SMA proper projects directly to the spinal cord and therefore is one of the primary output areas of the cortical motor system.

[5][12][13][14][15][16] Recently, Zhang et al.[17] investigated the functional subdivisions of the medial SFC on the basis of whole-brain connectivity characterized from a large resting-state fMRI data set.

Recently it has been shown by integrating simultaneously acquired EEG and fMRI that SMA and aMCC have strong reciprocal connections that act to sustain each other’s activity, and that this interaction is mediated during movement preparation according to the Bereitschaftspotential amplitude.

[38][39][40] This suggestion was based on studies in which stimulation on a behaviorally relevant time scale evoked complex, full body movements that resembled climbing or leaping.

The locomotion hypothesis is an example of interpreting the motor cortex in terms of the underlying behavioral repertoire from which abstract control functions emerge, an approach emphasized by Graziano and colleagues.