Definition of "spinal cord" []

• The thick, whitish cord of nerve tissue that extends from the medulla oblongata down through the spinal column and from which the spinal nerves branch off to various parts of the body. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "Saralee is agented for her book about her dog who became her caregiver after Saralee suffered a spinal cord injury, and her cat who kept her sane."
• "“We found that if we just transplanted motor neurons into the spinal cord and did nothing else, then the surrounding neighborhood in the spinal cord—the white matter surrounding the spinal fluid, which is full of other, healthy myelinated axons—would see these motor neurons as foreign and reject them,” Kerr says."
• "Dr. Oppenheim evaluated the patient and rushed him in for a delicate operation to stabilize his spine, but the spinal cord had been severed very high up."