seven patients who had intractable pain of the pelvis and lower extremities were scheduled for cordotomy of the spinothalamic tracts after preliminary investigations. in three patients laminectomy was performed, to approach the anterior portion of the spinal cord, anil in the rest anterior cordotomy was performed with anterior disectomy under direct vision of the spinal cord. it appears that an...

The locations of spinothalamic neurons and the funicular trajectories of their axons were studied in cats by retrograde transport of horseradish peroxidase (HRP). Five animals were used as controls to determine the cervical and lumbar laminar distributions of neurons contributing to the spinothalamic tract. An additional eight animals were used to determine the funicular trajectories of the spi...

A spinothalamic tract that courses in the dorsolateral funiculus of the spinal cord and originates almost exclusively from spinal lamina I neurons has been demonstrated in the cat by retrograde transport of horseradish peroxidase. This tract is of special interest because the course of this predominantly lamina I, contralateral projection lies outside the classical course of the spinothalamic t...

Neuropathic pain is a widespread and highly debilitating condition commonly resulting from injury to the nervous system, one main sequela of which is tactile allodynia, a pain induced by innocuous mechanical stimulation of the skin. Yet, the cellular mechanisms and neuronal substrates underlying this pathology have remained elusive. We studied this by quantifying and manipulating behavioural an...

Two patients are reported on who experienced loss of pain and temperature sensation in the entire contralateral hemibody but sparing the ispsilateral face (pure sensory stroke pattern) related to acute lateral medullary infarction. In both patients MRI showed a notch-like retro-olivary ischaemic lesion in the ventromedial tegmentum with preservation of the far lateral medulla. The mediolateral ...

Central neuropathic pain following lesions within the CNS, such as spinal cord injury, is one of the most excruciating types of chronic pain and one of the most difficult to treat. The role of spinothalamic pathways in this type of pain is not clear. Previous studies suggested that spinothalamic tract lesions are necessary but not sufficient for development of central pain, since deficits of sp...

objective: inflammation and proinflammatory cytokines play an important role in the initiation and maintenance of central neuropathic pain. there are several reports that cytokine production is increased at the lesion site following spinal injury. a few studies have investigated the supraspinal levels of these cytokines. this study intended to determine tnf-α and il-6 release in the ventroposte...

Prior work has indicated the existence of a major spinal cord pathway made up of lamina I cell axons ascending in the dorsolateral funiculus in both rat and cat. In cat, a portion of this lamina I dorsolateral funiculus pathway terminates in the thalamus. The purpose of this report is to demonstrate that a similar dorsolateral spinothalamic tract exists in macaque monkey. Retrograde transport o...

OBJECTIVE To report on a patient found to have injury of the spinothalamic tract on diffusion tensor tractography following traumatic brain injury. CASE DESCRIPTION A 29-year-old male patient with head trauma resulting from a pedestrian car accident presented with pain in multiple areas (both subscapular areas, posterior head and neck, both upper trapezius areas, and the right arm and leg). H...