Lissauer’s tract, also called the posterolateral or dorsal lateral tract or fasciculus, is a small region at on the dorsal lateral surface of the of the posterior horn of the spinal cord. It is the nerve root entry zone for axons carrying crude touch and pressure, pain and temperature information. These axons penetrate the grey matter of the dorsal horn, where they synapse on second-order neurons in either the substantia gelatinosa or the nucleus proprius. Those second order neurons project their axon to the anterolateral quadrant of the contralateral half of the spinal cord, where they give the spinothalamic component of the anterolateral tract. The axons of these second-order neurons synapse on neurons in the ventral posterior lateral nucleus (VPL) of the thalamus.
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