A ventral uncrossed corticospinal tract in the rat

Abstract

By studying cross-section autoradiograms of the spinal cord with dark field microscopy we demonstrated a ventral uncrossed corticospinal tract in the rat. Corticospinal fibers were labeled by the slow axoplasmic flow of a minute volume of high specific activity tritiated proline injected directly into the motor sensory cortex. The uncrossed ventral corticospinal tract was small but easily identifiable in the cervical region. More caudally the tract became less distinct and could not be traced below midthoracic levels. Only two corticospinal tracts were identified in this study: the well-known crossed dorsal corticospinal tract and the ventral uncrossed corticospinal tract described in this study.