Toward a physiological understanding of human dexterity

Dexterity, defined as the skillful manipulation of the hands, is now amenab le to physiological investigation. Two topics are discussed here: grasping (i.e., hand-object coupling) and bimanual coordination. Dexterity depends o n powerful, distributed neural networks and is particularly vulnerable to b rain lesions. A knowledge of physiological mechanisms is needed to deal wit h these neurological problems.