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. 2015 Apr 21;11:21. doi: 10.1186/s12990-015-0020-7

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© Levitt et al.; licensee BioMed Central. 2015

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.

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A simplified version of the ocular sensory apparatus. First order neuron (red solid line) with nerve ending in the cornea, cell body in the trigeminal ganglion, and synapse in the subnucleus caudalis. In actuality, however, there are multiple synapses for each nociceptor in the trigeminal subnucleus interpolaris/subnucleus caudalis (Vi/Vc) transition zone, and in the subnucleus caudalis/upper cervical transition zone (Vc/C_1–2). Second order neurons (red dashed line) decussate and join the contralateral spinothalamic pathways and synapse in the thalamus. Third-order neurons (red dashed line) then relay information to the supra-spinal centers, including the somatosensory cortex. Reproduced with permission from Ocul Surf. 2012 Jan;10(1):2–14.