Lampreys are used as a model organism in biomedical research, where their large reticulospinal axons are used to investigate synaptic transmission.
12.
Thus, the reticulospinal tracts are involved in many aspects of motor control, including the integration of sensory input to guide motor output.
13.
During normal REM sleep, spinal and brainstem alpha motor neuron hyperpolarization produces almost complete atonia of skeletal muscles via an inhibitory descending reticulospinal pathway.
14.
Each rhombomere can cause a repeated pattern of rhombomere-specific neurons, including reticulospinal neurons, many of which share properties such as mediolateral location.
15.
Hyperextension occurs due to facilitation of the anterior reticulospinal tract caused by the inactivation of inhibitory corticoreticular fibers, which normally act upon the pons reticular formation.
16.
These convey an impulse to neurons in the medullary reticular formation which project down the reticulospinal tract and synapse with afferent nerve fibers in the spinal cord ( L1-L6 ).
17.
The RVLM is a primary regulator of the sympathetic nervous system; it sends catecholaminergic projections to the sympathetic preganglionic neurons in the intermediolateral nucleus of the spinal cord via reticulospinal tract.
18.
These include dysesthesia ( abnormal sensation ), urinary retention and ( for bilateral cervical cordotomy ) apnoea during sleep ( acquired central hypoventilation syndrome ) caused by inadvertent division of the reticulospinal tracts.
19.
The changes in muscle tone probably result from alterations in the balance of inputs from reticulospinal and other descending pathways to the motor and interneuronal circuits of the spinal cord, and the absence of an intact corticospinal system.
20.
The descending rubrospinal tract and reticulospinal tract originate in the red nucleus and reticular formation ( which is closely associated with the central tegmental tract ) respectively, thereby providing the mechanism by which this circuit exerts its effects on spinal cord motor activity.
