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Certain voluntary movements involve coordination between the limbs. The neuronal mechanisms mediating this coordination have not been extensively studied. The activity of cortical neurons have been studied during tasks performed by monkeys requiring coordination between the two arms. Most primary motor cortex (MI) neurons showed activity specific to bimanual movements. Units in the supplementary motor (SMA) exhibited no more bimanual-related activity than MI units.

Motor functions or sensory stimuli lead to a correlated firing among neurons in the brain cortex that occurs quickly and depends on the nature of stimulus. The distance between two neurons also influences the response behavior, implying the need for an alteration in neural coding models based on single neuron firing rates. Joint peri-stimulus time histograms aid these studies on neuronal interactions.