The projections to the spinal cord of the rat during development: a timetable of descent.

In order to establish a timetable for the developmental descent of supraspinal descending projections in the rat, a retrograde neuronal tracer was injected into the spinal cord of rat fetuses and neonates both at different gestational ages and at different levels of the spinal cord. From the results of these experiments a position interval could be deduced for the leading descending fibers of each spinal-projecting nucleus at each age studied. The chronological series of position intervals of each supraspinal descending projection (the descent pattern) depicts the descent of its fiber front during development and allows for easy comparison between the various projections. According to these descent patterns the descent sequences of the various spinal-projecting nuclei were established. At E17 fibers from the lateral vestibular nucleus, the raphe magnus nucleus and the gigantocellular reticular nucleus were present in the lumbosacral spinal cord; their descent along the spinal cord thus occurs before this stage. At E18 fibers from the parafascicular prerubral nucleus, the interstitial nucleus of Cajal, the mesencephalic reticular nucleus, the caudal pontine reticular nucleus, the laterodorsal tegmental nucleus, the subcoerulean nucleus, the spinal vestibular nucleus, the interpolar spinal trigeminal nucleus, the raphe obscurus nucleus and the ventral medullary reticular nucleus arrived in the lumbosacral cord. At the same stage fibers from the oral and caudal spinal trigeminal nucleus reached their caudalmost extent in the spinal cord, respectively, the lower and upper thoracic cord. At E19 fibers from the oral pontine reticular nucleus, the parvocellular reticular nucleus, the ventral gigantocellular reticular nucleus and the ambiguous nucleus first appeared in the lumbosacral cord. At E20 fibers from Darkschewitsch's nucleus, the paralemniscal and parabrachial nuclei, cell group A5, the locus coeruleus, the gigantocellular reticular nucleus-alpha, the raphe pallidus nucleus, the paramedian reticular nucleus, and from the dorsal medullary reticular nucleus arrived in the lumbosacral cord. Last to arrive in the lumbar cord during the prenatal period, at E21, were fibers from the posterior commissural nucleus, the red nucleus, the Edinger-Westphal nucleus, the paragigantocellular reticular nucleus, the medial vestibular nucleus, Roller's nucleus, and the solitary nucleus. Fibers from the paraventricular hypothalamic nucleus and from the lateral hypothalamic area only arrived in the lumbosacral cord at P1, followed by fibers from the incertal nucleus at P4. A transient spinal projection from an unknown group of neurons located immediately lateral to and partly intermingled with the mesencephalic trigeminal nucleus arrived in the lumbosacral spinal cord at E18 and had disappeared at P1. This cell group, called Gr?, closely resembled the mesencephalic trigeminal nucleus (Me5). Both were teardrop shaped; an oblong mass of neurons at the caudal end with a long and thin trailing edge. The trailing edge of Gr?, however, curved dorsad towards the dorsal midline raphe of the caudal mesencephalon, while the trailing edge of Me5 curved rostrad, parallel to the sulcus limitans of the sylvian aquaduct. The neurons of Gr? are mainly round, but in the caudal part of the nucleus some horizontally oriented fusiform neurons were observed. All neurons of Gr? were tiny. These results confirm that the generation sequence of the source nuclei is not a prime determinant of descent sequence along the spinal cord. The distance between the source nucleus and the entrance to the target seems of influence only in the most extreme cases (diencephalic source nuclei and the cerebral cortex). Descent velocity of the fiber fronts is not equal between different sources, nor is the descent velocity of specific fiber fronts constant over time. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED)