Topographic changes in adult primate somatosensory cortical maps have
been reported to follow well-regulated manipulations in the animals' e
xperience. We report briefly here cortical mapping data from one monke
y which arrived at our laboratory with a chronic paralytic condition i
n one hand that resulted in a unique pattern of skin surface stimulati
on. Isolated receptive fields across the mediolateral extent of cortic
al area 3b were highly unusual with respect to normal topography, but
they were completely consistent with the hypothesis that the correlate
d activation of peripheral afferents acts to shape expressed cortical
receptive fields.