Decussation

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Decussation is used in biological contexts to describe a crossing.

Examples include:

In the brain, where nerve fibers cross from one lateral part to the other.
In phyllotaxis when an opposite pattern of leaves has successive leaf pairs that are perpendicular, it is called decussate.

In the brain

Examples in the brain include:

A decussation here is the crossing of millions of axons and to achieve this there need to be a tight controll in order to have as few errors as possible. The advantage of having such a complicated system may be to compensate for the 180 degree inversion in visual perception through the eye. In addition, it may provide a more robust structure.

References

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Last updated on Tuesday January 29, 2008 at 22:58:40 PST (GMT -0800)
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