Raphespinal tract

Raphespinal tract
Details
Identifiers
Latintractus raphespinales
Anatomical terminology

The raphespinal tract is an unmyelinated descending serotonergic tract involved in pain modulation. It is a descending pain-inhibiting pathway; it is a component of the reticulospinal tract.[1]

It originates in the raphe nuclei (particularly the nucleus raphe magnus) of the reticular formation of the medulla oblongata (as well as serotonergic neurons of the gigantocellular reticular nucleus[2]), and projects to the spinal trigeminal nucleus, and posterior grey column (especially the substantia gelatinosa (lamina II)) of spinal cord.[1]

It consists of two components:[3]

  1. ^ a b Kiernan, John A.; Rajakumar, Nagalingam (2013). Barr's The Human Nervous System: An Anatomical Viewpoint (10th ed.). Philadelphia: Wolters Kluwer Lippincott Williams & Wilkins. pp. 154, 291–293. ISBN 978-1-4511-7327-7.
  2. ^ Cite error: The named reference Patestas-2016 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  3. ^ Donkelaar, Hans J. ten; Kachlík, David; Tubbs, R. Shane. An Illustrated Terminologia Neuroanatomica: A Concise Encyclopedia of Human Neuroanatomy. Springer. p. 418. ISBN 978-3-319-64789-0.