Spinal cord modularity: Evolution, development, and optimization and the possible relevance to low back pain in man

Abstract

"(1 ) Evolution is a passage from the most to the least organized; that is to say, from the lowest, well-organized centers, up to the highest, least-organized centers; putting this otherwise, the progress is from centers comparatively well organized at birth up to those, the highest centers, which are continually organizing through life. (2) Evolution is a passage from the most simple to the most complex; again from the lowest to the highest centers...[these] being at the same time most complex and least organized. (3) Evolution is a passage from the most automatic to the most voluntary. ". John Hughlings jackson, 'Evolution and dissolution of the nervous system', Croonian Lectures, Royal college of Physicians, March 1884. © springer-verlag 2009.