Review of Gray Matter Organization (Nursing)

00:00 Okay. Here's a great kind of more in focused, in detail picture of the spinal cord.

00:06 Now, this is a slice of the spinal cord.

00:09 As if it was a carrot, we had sliced a dime - disk sized portion of it.

00:13 That's what you see here in the spinal cord.

00:16 Where I want you to start is first let's look at it as a whole set up.

00:20 You've got the white matter and the gray matter.

00:22 The gray matter's kind of that butterfly shaped slice of neurons in the middle.

00:27 So, I want you to start with a dorsal horn where it says "interneurons." Let's talk about those first.

00:34 See, interneurons transmit impulses between other neurons, that's their job.

00:39 Now move down toward those other nerve roots.

00:43 You got the dorsal root that's the sensory one, the dorsal root ganglion, the somatic sensory neurons, visceral sensory neurons, visceral motor neurons and the somatic motor neurons.

00:54 Well, hopefully that lines up with what we've been talking about.

00:58 The spinal cord communicates information both sensory and motor so you need pathways for both.

01:06 So we've got the ventral root there that's the motor.

01:09 The dorsal root is the sensory.

01:10 And the interneurons are the ones that communicate information between neurons so that's pretty much how the gray matter is organized.

01:19 Now let's break that down a little bit more.

01:22 We've done a good job showing you the colors.

01:24 So, we talked about the interneurons receive input from the somatic sensory neurons.

01:29 We showed you that area in the kind of blue gray color.

01:32 Next, we're adding a light green color.

01:35 That's where the interneurons receive input from the visceral and sensory neurons.

01:40 Now, the kind of golden yellow color, the visceral motor or the autonomic neurons are there.

01:48 And finally, the kind of reddish color, they're the somatic motor neurons.

01:54 Okay. So why are we breaking this down to you? Well, look what's in the back or the posterior. That's the somatic and the visceral sensory neurons.

02:04 What's in the front or the anterior? The visceral motor and the somatic motor.

02:10 That's important to remember because if someone doesn't have a complete spinal cord injury, motor or sensory may be impacted more than the other.

02:20 So that's where we get the problems with spinal cord, it all depends on location of the injury and the damage.