NEUR 2600 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Spinal Cord, Parasympathetic Nervous System, Dorsal Root Of Spinal Nerve
Document Summary
Segmentation of the spinal cord is similar in humans to other animals. Hox genes in organisms code for different segments of the body. Hox genes in organisms such as the worm or fly are similar to those in humans. There are more hox genes in humans. This suggests segmentation is common to all animals. Each dermatome responds to skin, muscles, and bones of that segment. Guide in reattaching limbs: dorsal-ventral specialization. Bell-magendie law states that the dorsal spinal cord is for sensory information and the ventral is for motor. Bell-magendie law is considered to be the most important find because it showed that the brain is organized. Magendie discovered this by cutting either the dorsal root or the ventral root of a segment of the spinal cord. Cutting the ventral root of one segment resulted in loss of motor function of that segment.
