Electrophysiological studies on the termination sites of double projection spinal dorsal horn neurons in the cat.

Some projection neurons in laminae Ⅲ, Ⅳ and Ⅴ of the felline lumbar dorsal horn have been found to be antidromically driven from stimulation of both the ipsilateral cervical dorsal and dorsolateral funiculi that are well-dissected and insulated from one another. No detectable responses can be evoked from these nenrons when stimulation is applied to sites rostral to the lateral cervical nucleus and the dorsal column nuclei, suggesting that the dorsal and dorsolateral funicular branches of these neuron's axons terrninate in the lateral cervical nucleus and the dorsal column nuclei, respectively. The results indicate that these neurons axe an intersection set of the spinal cervical tract (SCT) and dorsal column postsynaptic (DCPS) neurons and have been thus named spinal cervical tract-dorsal column postsynaptie (SCT-DCPS) neurons.