Nerve root

When the nerve root is called the entering and exiting nerve fibers of the spinal cord. The anterior root corresponding to nerve cell bodies ( perikarya or somata ) also referred to as root cells. For each segment of the spine on both sides are two nerve roots, which unite in the intervertebral each channel into a spinal nerve ( spinal nerve ).

Through the dorsal nerve root ( radix posterior, in animals dorsal root ) provides that the afferents ( afferent nerve fibers ) that conduct sensitive information to the spinal cord. Their cell bodies lie outside the spinal cord in the spinal ganglion ( spinal ganglion ).

Due to the ventral nerve root ( radix anterior, in animals Radix ventralis ) provides that the efferent ( nerve fibers leading away ) from the spinal cord. This nerve root contains motor nerve fibers whose cell bodies lie in the ventral horn of the gray matter of the spinal cord, in some spinal cord sections also fibers of the autonomic nervous system, whose cell bodies in the central part ( pars intermedia) are localized in gray matter.

The recognition of the functional separation of the two spinal nerve goes to Charles Bell and François Magendie back ( Bell - Magendie law). One area of the nerve root near its entry into the spinal cord is considered as a transitional zone between peripheral and central nervous system ( Redlich -Oberstein zone).