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The
Anterolateral System
The anterolateral system contains the "classic" pathways
for transmission of nociceptive information from the periphery
to the cerebral cortex (Willis
and Westlund, 1997). The anterolateral system receives its
name because the axons of secondary sensory neurons course in
the white matter of the anterolateral quadrant of the spinal cord.
This system
consists of several pathways that transmit nociceptive information.
The most important of these pathways, and the one most studied,
is the spinothalamic tract. This pathway, as well as the
other pathways in the anterolateral system, is named for the location
of the neuronal cell body (prefix) and termination of the axon
(suffix). Thus, the cell bodies of the spinothalamic tract are
located in the spinal cord and the axons terminate in the thalamus.
By name only,
this pathway would consist of simply the secondary sensory neuron.
In common usage, however, the spinothalamic tract consists of
all three neurons involved in the pathway from the periphery to
the cortex (the classic three neuron pathway).
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