title: A hypothesis on the functional significance of the dendritic projections of spinothalamic tract cells to the white matter of the cat spinal cord.
abstract: Deep, lumbar, spinothalamic tract cells have fine distal dendrites which project to, and receive synaptic connections within, the ventral (VF) and/or lateral funiculi (LF). The projection to the LF is inversely related (P less than 0.05) to the projection of the VF. It is proposed that the white matter dendrites receive a particular level of tonic, excitatory drive from a wide variety of axons in the VF and/or LF and that this drive is responsible for the spontaneous activity seen in these cells; activity which provides a baseline against which particular forms of natural stimulation may be registered either by causing an increase or a decrease in the firing frequency.
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D002415:Cats; D003712:Dendrites / Q000502:physiology* / Q000648:ultrastructure; D005071:Evoked Potentials; D009474:Neurons / Q000502:physiology / Q000648:ultrastructure; D013116:Spinal Cord / Q000033:anatomy & histology / Q000502:physiology*; D013133:Spinothalamic Tracts / Q000033:anatomy & histology / Q000502:physiology*; D013569:Synapses / Q000502:physiology; D009435:Synaptic Transmission