What are the 3 main parts of the spinal cord?
Your spinal cord has three main parts:
- Cervical (neck).
- Thoracic (chest).
- Lumbar (lower back).
What are the 4 main segments of the spinal cord?
The spinal cord is a cylindrical structure of nervous tissue composed of white and gray matter, is uniformly organized and is divided into four regions: cervical (C), thoracic (T), lumbar (L) and sacral (S), (Figure 3.1), each of which is comprised of several segments.
What are the 33 vertebrae?
The spine is composed of 33 bones, called vertebrae, divided into five sections: the cervical, thoracic, and lumbar spine sections, and the sacrum and coccyx bones. The cervical section of the spine is made up of the top seven vertebrae in the spine, C1 to C7, and is connected to the base of the skull.
Why is grey matter grey?
Grey matter (or gray matter) makes up the outermost layer of the brain and is pinkish grey in tone, hence the name grey matter. It gets its grey tone from the high concentration of neuronal cell bodies in contains. Grey matter also contains unmyelinated axons.
Why is the brain pink?
In a living person, it actually looks pinkish-brown, because it has so many tiny blood vessels called capillaries. White matter is buried deep in the brain, while gray matter is mostly found on the brain’s surface, or cortex.
Why is it called white matter?
The white matter is so-called because it contains many nerve fibers or neurons that are sheathed in the white fatty insulating protein called myelin. In section, myelin is white whereas the gray matter is that color due to all the gray nuclei contained in the cells that make it up.
What is conus medullaris and cauda equina?
The most distal bulbous part of the spinal cord is called the conus medullaris, and its tapering end continues as the filum terminale. Distal to this end of the spinal cord is a collection of nerve roots, which are horsetail-like in appearance and hence called the cauda equina (Latin for horse’s tail).