In a diving accident, Arlene damages the left side of her upper thoracic spinal cord. On which side of the body will she lose: muscle control, tactile sensation, and pain sensation? Explain.

Video transcript

Hi, everyone. Let's take a look at this practice problem together, severe damage of the spinal cord at the cervical level would cause the answer. Options are a total paralysis of all four extremities and the torso b paralysis of one side of the body. C, loss of pain and temperature sensation below the spinal lesion. Option D both A and C and option E all of the above. So recall that the spinal cord carries both motor and sensory information between the brain and the rest of the body. Therefore, injury to the spinal cord will affect both motor and sensory functions. Now, what happens with cervical spinal cord damage? Well, first, there's going to be injury to the cervical spinal nerves and recall that these spinal nerves innervate muscles in the neck, upper extremities and the diaphragm. Secondly, damage to the spinal cord affects not only the level that is damaged but everything below that level as well. Therefore, damage to the cervical spinal cord affects not only the cervical spinal nerves, but all the spinal nerves below that level. So that's going to include your thoracic, your lumbar and your sacral spinal nerves. Ultimately damage to the cervical spinal cord will result in motor and sensory function loss from the neck down. So let's take a look at those answer. Options. Again, option A total paralysis of all four extremities and the torso is true. So option A is true. This is called quadriplegia and is a result of severe cervical spinal cord damage. Option B, paralysis of one side of the body. This is not correct because paralysis will affect both sides of the body. So, option B is incorrect and therefore, so is option E option C, the loss of pain and temperature sensation below the spinal lesion. This is also true. Remember the effects of the spinal cord damage result in loss of function of both motor and sensory. Therefore, the correct answer is option D, both A and C. All right, everyone I hope you found this helpful and I'll see you soon for the next practice problem.