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Systems Descending from the Cortex and Brain Stem: Functional Recovery Following Damage

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Neuroscience in the 21st Century

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Abstract

Complex activation patterns of forelimb muscles during skilled reach and grasp movements are generated by the combined activity of a variety of descending pathways from supraspinal centers to the spinal motoneurons. The corticospinal tract originating from the primary motor cortex is directly connected to motoneurons innervating forelimb muscles and are considered to be crucial for the dexterous digit movements, while other descending inputs mediated by the brainstem nuclei such as red nucleus (rubrospinal tract), brainstem reticular formation (reticulospinal tract), and propriospinal neurons additionally contribute to various aspects of the skilled forelimb movements. These pathways are also involved in the compensation of the impaired motor functions for the recovery after injury to the corticospinal tract such as the stroke and spinal cord injury. There, these various descending pathways dynamically interact with each other depending on the location and extent of the injury.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Neuroscience, Graduate School of Medicine, Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan

    Tadashi Isa

  2. Institute for the Advanced Study of Human Biology (WPI-ASHBi), Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan

    Tadashi Isa

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  1. Tadashi Isa
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Correspondence to Tadashi Isa .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Rockefeller University Lab. Neurobiology & Behaviour, New York, NY, USA

    Donald W. Pfaff

  2. National Institutes of Health (NIH), National Institute of Drug Abuse (NIDA), Rockville, MD, USA

    Nora D. Volkow

  3. Department of Psychiatry, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, USA

    John Rubenstein

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Isa, T. (2022). Systems Descending from the Cortex and Brain Stem: Functional Recovery Following Damage. In: Pfaff, D.W., Volkow, N.D., Rubenstein, J. (eds) Neuroscience in the 21st Century. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-6434-1_36-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-6434-1_36-3

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4614-6434-1

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4614-6434-1

  • eBook Packages: Springer Reference Biomedicine and Life SciencesReference Module Biomedical and Life Sciences

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