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The lateral spinothalamic tract (or lateral spinothalamic fasciculus), is a bundle of afferent nerve fibers ascending through the white matter of the spinal cord, in the spinothalamic tract, carrying sensory information to the brain. It carries pain, and temperature sensory information (protopathic sensation) to the thalamus.
This tract was historically considered a cephalic division of the medial lemniscus due to the close proximity of the two ascending tracts. [2] Like the medial lemniscus in the dorsal column-medial lemniscus pathway (DCML), that carries mechanosensory information from part of the head and the rest of the body, the trigeminal lemniscus carries ...
The spinothalamic tract thus decussates very soon after entering the spinal cord, ascending in the spinal cord, contralateral to the side from where it provides (pain and temperature) sensory information.
The ventral trigeminal tract, ventral trigeminothalamic tract, anterior trigeminal tract, or anterior trigeminothalamic tract, is a tract composed of second-order neuronal axons. These afferent fibers carry sensory information about discriminative and crude touch, conscious proprioception, pain, and temperature from the head, face, and oral cavity.
The spinohypothalamic tract or spinohypothalamic fibers is a sensory fiber tract projecting from the spinal cord to the hypothalamus directly to mediate reflex autonomic and endocrine responses to painful stimuli (the hypothalamus receives additional indirect nociceptive projections from the reticular formation (see: spinoreticular tract), and periaqueductal gray (see: spinomesencephalic tract).
Note that a lesion of the lateral spinothalamic tract at a given level will not result in sensory loss for the dermatome of the same level; this is due to the fibers of the tract of Lissauer which transmit the neuron one or two levels above the affected segment (thus bypassing the segmental lesion on the contralateral side).
The substantia gelatinosa is one point (the nucleus proprius being the other) where first order neurons of the spinothalamic tract synapse. Many μ and κ-opioid receptors, presynaptic and postsynaptic, are found on these nerve cells; they can be targeted to manage pain of distal origin. For instance, neuraxial administration of opioids results ...
The loss of the spinothalamic tract leads to pain and temperature sensation being lost from the contralateral side beginning one or two segments below the lesion. In addition, if the lesion occurs above T1 of the spinal cord it will produce ipsilateral Horner's syndrome with involvement of the oculosympathetic pathway.