Library · Anatomy
Spinal cord
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The spinal cord is an extension of the central nervous system: a long, cylindrical cord that runs down inside the vertebral canal, like a cable inside a tube. The central nervous system itself is made up of two parts: the brain and the cord.
Thirty-one pairs of spinal nerves emerge from it, and those nerves fan out mainly to the trunk and the limbs. At the bottom, the cord does not stop abruptly: it tapers into a cone, and that tip is called the conus medullaris. But the cord is not just a cable passing through. Inside it, the sensory pathways, the ones that carry what you feel, come together with the motor pathways, the ones that carry the commands to move; reflexes, those responses that happen before you have time to think, depend on that integration.
In brief
The spinal cord is a long, cylindrical extension of the central nervous system inside the vertebral canal; together with the brain it makes up that system.
Thirty-one pairs of spinal nerves emerge from it, going mainly to the trunk and the limbs, and its lowest part tapers into a cone, the conus medullaris.
Reflex coordination depends on sensory and motor pathways coming together in the spinal cord.
Sources (2)
- NCBI Bookshelf, U.S. National Library of MedicineNeuroanatomy, Spinal Cord (StatPearls)
- OpenStax, Rice UniversityAnatomy and Physiology 2e, 13.2 The Central Nervous SystemPublished
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