MICROANATOMY

Detailed explanation-1: -Descending tracts are the pathways by which motor signals are sent from the brain to the spinal cord. They are also called motor tracts, due to their involvement in movement coordination. These tracts can be classified by their structural arrangement, into lateral and medial tracts.

Detailed explanation-2: -The ascending tracts carry sensory information from the body, like pain, for example, up the spinal cord to the brain. Descending tracts carry motor information, like instructions to move the arm, from the brain down the spinal cord to the body.

Detailed explanation-3: -Descending tracts carry motor information in efferent nerves from upper motor neurons of cortical structures like the cerebellum and cerebrum. The descending tracts transmit this information to lower motor neurons, allowing it to reach muscles.

Detailed explanation-4: -ie all the neurones within the descending motor system are classed as upper motor neurones. Their cell bodies are found in the cerebral cortex or the brain stem, with their axons remaining within the CNS[1].

Detailed explanation-5: -Ascending tracts / sensory tracts – carry exteroceptive and proprioceptive sensations to higher centers of brain. Descending tracts / motor tracts – carry motor impulses from higher brain centers to motor nuclei of cranial nerves and anterior horn neurons of spinal cord.