Segmenting the spinal cord for neurolocalization

In an interview earlier this winter, Karen Kline, DVM, MS, DACVIM (Neurology) talked to dvm360 about her lecture “Neurolocalization Two: The String Cheese Incident,” presented at the Fetch dvm360 conference in Long Beach, California. In the interview, Kline discusses why neurolocalization in the spinal cord and neuromuscular system is important. She also explains how the spinal cord is segmented, and how neurologic findings correlate with disease processes.

Below is the interview transcript. It has been lightly edited for clarity.

Karen Kline, DVM, MS, DACVIM (Neurology): This lecture is designed to help us determine where the problem is in our spinal cord and our neuromuscular systems. Very important, because when we have an animal who comes in that's not using their legs, it may just not be spinal cord, it may be a problem with the muscles and nerves themselves.

What we do with our spinal cord is divide it up into 4 segments—C1 to C5; C6 to T2; T3 L3, and L4 to S2—and we define how we're localizing based on the specific neurologic findings with each particular place within the spinal cord. So those findings correlate with disease processes, but also what that patient looks like on presentation. So, we try to break it down in a very efficient manner, but also make it easy to understand.