ABSTRACT
This chapter encourages quick, focused study and detailed answers aid comprehension and also familiarity with spinal cord lesions with essential diagrams, colour images and sample MRIs. In cauda equina (which is a medical emergency) where there is compression of a number of spinal nerves, there may be urinary/bowel incontinence or painless retention or erectile dysfunction. In those with high spinal cord injuries, for example, patients may have difficulty regulating blood pressure, heart rate and sweating. Syringomyelia (collection of CSF in the central canal) can lead to damage of the anterior white commissure of the spinothalamic tract (located close to the central canal), which results in bilateral loss of pain and temperature sensation. Proprioception and vibration senses carried by dorsal column tracts are unaffected.
