Anterior spinocerebellar tract

The ventral spinocerebellar tract (or anterior spinocerebellar tract) conveys proprioceptive information from the body to the cerebellum.

Historically, it has also been known as Gowers' column (or fasciculus or tract), after Sir William Richard Gowers.

It is part of the somatosensory system and runs in parallel with the dorsal spinocerebellar tract. Both these tracts involve two neurons.

The ventral spinocerebellar tract will cross to the opposite side of the body first in the spinal cord as part of the anterior white commissure and then cross again to end in the cerebellum (referred to as a "double cross"), as compared to the dorsal spinocerebellar tract, which does not decussate, or cross sides, at all through its path.

The ventral tract (under L2/L3) gets its proprioceptive/fine touch/vibration information from a first order neuron, with its cell body in a dorsal ganglion.

The axon runs via the fila radicularia to the dorsal horn of the grey matter.

There it makes a synapse with the dendrites of two neurons: they send their axons bilaterally to the ventral border of the lateral funiculi.

The fibers of the ventral spinocerebellar tract then enters the cerebellum via the superior cerebellar peduncle.

This is in contrast with the dorsal spinocerebellar tract (C8 - L2/L3), which only has 1 unilateral axon that has its cell body in Clarke's column (only at the level of C8 - L2/L3).

Originates from ventral horn at lumbosacral spinal levels.

Axons first cross midline in the spinal cord and run in the ventral border of the lateral funiculi.