In the human

central nervous system The central nervous system (CNS) is the part of the nervous system consisting primarily of the brain, spinal cord and retina. The CNS is so named because the brain integrates the received information and coordinates and influences the activity o ...

, the interstitiospinal tract is one of ten descending

neuronal tract A neuron (American English), neurone (British English), or nerve cell, is an excitable cell that fires electric signals called action potentials across a neural network in the nervous system. They are located in the nervous system and help to ...

s in humans that provides motor control to specific upper cervical somatic segments. The origin of this uncrossed tract is in the

interstitial nucleus of Cajal The interstitial nucleus of Cajal is a collection of neurons in the mesencephalon (midbrain) which are involved in integrating eye position-velocity information in order to coordinate head-eye movements - especially those related to vertical and ...

(related to the

oculomotor nucleus The fibers of the oculomotor nerve arise from a nucleus in the midbrain, which lies in the gray substance of the floor of the cerebral aqueduct and extends in front of the aqueduct for a short distance into the floor of the third ventricle. F ...

) which is subsequently found in the Edinger-Westphal nucleus of the

midbrain The midbrain or mesencephalon is the uppermost portion of the brainstem connecting the diencephalon and cerebrum with the pons. It consists of the cerebral peduncles, tegmentum, and tectum. It is functionally associated with vision, hearing, mo ...

. This tract also contributes to the make-up of the

medial longitudinal fasciculus The medial longitudinal fasciculus (MLF) is a prominent bundle of nerve fibres which pass within the ventral/anterior portion of periaqueductal gray of the mesencephalon (midbrain). It contains the interstitial nucleus of Cajal, responsible ...

(MLF). Within the terminal segments of the upper cervical segments the interstitiospinal tract synapses in

rexed laminae The Rexed laminae (singular: Rexed lamina) comprise a system of ten layers of grey matter (I–X), identified in the early 1950s by Bror Rexed to label portions of the grey columns of the spinal cord. Similar to Brodmann areas, they are define ...

VII and VIII. It is believed to function in head and neck reflex movements in response to primarily visual and possibly

vestibular The Vestibular (from , "entrance hall") is a competitive examination and is the primary and widespread entrance system used by Brazilian universities to select the students admitted. The Vestibular usually takes place from November to January, ...

stimuli.

References

{{Authority control Nerves of the head and neck