Talk:Spinal cord

I really liked this concise review.

The only comments I have concern clarifications of some terms, they may only require a link to another scholarpedia article. These are made directly in the text (the comments follow the ambiguous terms).

Note: I had printed the article on Sept 24, and used this printout for review. Since then, the article has been modified, my review mostly does not take these changes into account.

User 2 (Editor):

"Phylogenetically, it is the oldest part of the central nervous system (CNS). In contrast to the more recently evolved cerebral and cerebellar hemispheres of the brain, the cell bodies and dendrites of spinal neurons (gray matter) lie inside the cord while the nerve fibers (axons) that interconnect them (white matter) run along the outside." Is there really evidence that an ancestral vertebrate had a spinal cord, but no brain? I don't think this statement is true. It is a reflection of the concept of scala natura, which assumes that there is a linear addition of new parts. I think this assumption about evolution should be taken out. It also directly contradicts that summary paragraph, which says "The spinal cord is a highly evolved and complex part of the CNS that has considerable computational ability." How can it be both highly evolved and the oldest part? "Highly evolved" is an ambiguous phrase. It suggests that it is more complex than "less evolved" structures.