Trunk nerves (intercostal, sympathetic, vagus nerve)
Lateral fasciculus proprius
Fasciculus proprius lateralis
- Origin
- Thin sleeve of short fibres immediately around the grey matter, on the side of the cord between the anterior and posterior horn
- Insertion
- Runs up and down over a few segments and ends again in the grey matter of a neighbouring segment
- Function
- Largest of the three propriospinal tracts; it links the segments laterally and carries the fibres that tune trunk and limb muscles of successive levels to each other
- Innervation
- Intrinsic to the spinal cord
- Movement & chain
- Tunes the muscle activity of successive segments to each other
- Palpation
- Not palpable
- Clinical
- It lies right next to the lateral corticospinal and the spinothalamic tract, so a lateral cord lesion rarely hits this tract alone; in a hemisection (Brown-Sequard syndrome) it is lost together with those long tracts.
- Segmental innervation
- Along the whole length C1-Co1
- In clinical practice
- Relevant in rehabilitation after an incomplete cord injury, where recovery of intersegmental coordination is the basis of gait training
- Region in the model
- Trunk nerves (intercostal, sympathetic, vagus nerve)