Cuneate fasciculus is labeled in blue at upper right.
Diagram of the principal fasciculi of the spinal cord.
|Latin||fasciculus cuneatus medullae spinalis|
The cuneate fasciculus, fasciculus cuneatus (tract of Burdach, named for Karl Friedrich Burdach) is a tract of nerves in the spinal cord that primarily transmits information from the arms. It is part of the posterior column-medial lemniscus pathway.
Its fibers, larger than those of the fasciculus gracilis, are mostly derived from the same source, viz., the posterior nerve roots.
Some ascend for only a short distance in the tract, and, entering the gray matter, come into close relationship with the cells of the dorsal nucleus, while others can be traced as far as the medulla oblongata, where they end in the gracile nucleus and cuneate nucleus.
The fasciculus cuneatus tract is composed of first-order neurons that synapse onto second-order neurons in the brain stem.
- Illustration and text: sc97/text/p1/Pathway.htm at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Medical school