Path
The anterior spinal artery is a small branch, which arises near the termination of the vertebral, and, descending in front of the medulla oblongata, unites with its fellow of the opposite side at the level of the foramen magnum.
One of these vessels is usually larger than the other, but occasionally they are about equal in size.
The single trunk descends in the front of the medulla spinalis, and gives off several small branches which enter the vertebral canal through the intervertebral foramina. These branches are derived from the vertebral artery, the ascending cervical artery, a branch of the inferior thyroid artery in the neck, the intercostal arteries in the thorax, and from the lumbar artery, iliolumbar artery and lateral sacral arteries in the abdomen and pelvis.
They unite, by means of ascending and descending branches, to form a single anterior median artery, which extend as far as the lower part of the medulla spinalis, and is continued as a slender twig on the filum terminale.
This vessel is placed in the pia mater along the anterior median fissure; it supplies that membrane, and the substance of the medulla spinalis, and sends off branches at its lower part to be distributed to the cauda equina.
Read more about this topic: Anterior Spinal Artery
Famous quotes containing the word path:
“The living language is like a cowpath: it is the creation of the cows themselves, who, having created it, follow it or depart from it according to their whims or their needs. From daily use, the path undergoes change. A cow is under no obligation to stay in the narrow path she helped make, following the contour of the land, but she often profits by staying with it and she would be handicapped if she didn’t know where it was or where it led to.”
—E.B. (Elwyn Brooks)
“Today brings the sad, glad tidings that Mrs. Abraham Lincoln has passed from that darkness which had fallen upon her path through this life, out into the light and joy of that life toward which her vision has so long been strained.
Modern education is lethal to children.... We stuff them with mathematics, we pummel them with science, and we use them up before their time.”
—Honoré De Balzac (1799–1850)
“We are the pioneers of the world; the advance-guard, sent on through the wilderness of untried things, to break a new path in the New World that is ours.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)