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Glite Dictionary
🧠 Nerve pathway 🧠 A nerve tract
spinothalamic

spinothalamic

1 9.9
Relating to the nerve pathway that carries pain and temperature signals from the spinal cord to the thalamus
  • adjective
  • /ˌspɪnoʊθəˈlæmɪk/
  • Specialized
: espinotalámico
  • Understanding the spinothalamic tract is essential for comprehending pain processing in the nervous system.
  • spinothalamic tract

Examples

  • The spinothalamic pathway transmits pain signals from the spinal cord to the brain.

  • The pain of pruritus is carried to the central nervous system by unmyelinated C fibers and spinothalamic tracts.

    Academic text (1996)

  • Researchers studied how the spinothalamic nerves carry temperature sensations to the thalamus.

Surface Forms

spinothalamic positive

Morphology

spinothalamic = thalamic (semi-transparent) = spino + thalam + ic

Adding 'spino-' to 'thalamic' clearly signals a relation between the spinal cord and the thalamus, but the precise anatomical pathway meaning is specialized.

Etymology

Spinothalamic comes from two parts: spino- (from spine, the backbone) and -thalamic (from thalamus, an old Greek word for 'inner room' or 'chamber'). So spinothalamic literally means 'spine to thalamus', which explains why it describes a nerve pathway connecting the spinal cord to the brain's thalamus.