Definition
The spinal ascending pathway that transmits somesthetic inputs from the level of the spinal cord directly to the thalamus in rat.
Characteristics
The spinothalamic tract (STT) of the rat is a moderately developed pathway comprising 6,000–9,500 spinal neurons according to evaluations based on different tracing techniques (Burstein et al. 1990). This is less than half of the number estimated in macaque monkeys. Spinal segments are unevenly represented (Giesler et al. 1979; Granum 1986; Kemplay and Webster 1986). Half of the neurons lie in the first four cervical segments, the cervical enlargement contains less than 5 %, the lumbar enlargement 33 %, and the thoracic, sacral, and coccygeal segments all together about 10 % (Fig. 1). This indicates that, as for somatosensory information conveyed by dorsal column systems towards the thalamus, different parts of the body are not represented to the same extent, thus reflecting the relative importance of various body regions in...
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References
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Menétrey, D. (2013). Spinothalamic Projections in Rat. In: Gebhart, G.F., Schmidt, R.F. (eds) Encyclopedia of Pain. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-28753-4_4167
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-28753-4_4167
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