Origins of brainstem-spinal projections in the duck and goose

The purpose of this study was to determine the location of neuronal cell bodies with projections to the cervical or lumbar spinal cord in the adult duck and goose. Bilateral or unilateral injections (5-10 microliter) of the retrograde tracer dye True Blue (TB:5%) were made into the high cervical or high lumbar levels of the spinal cord. Similar results were obtained in both species. First, we found no evidence of retrogradely labelled cells in the telencephalon. In the brainstem, the distribution of TB cells was similar to those previously reported for the pigeon; however, the present study now demonstrates that some of these descending pathways project as far as the lumbar cord. We also discovered that there is a topographical representation of spinal projecting neurons within the avian medullary-pontine reticular formation.