One night, Arjun tested himself. He closed the book and sketched the entire corticospinal tract from memory: from the motor cortex (Brodmann's area 4), down through the corona radiata, squeezing through the posterior limb of the internal capsule (between the lentiform nucleus and the thalamus— that's why a capsular stroke is so devastating ), to the brainstem, decussating at the medulla (90% cross, 10% stay ipsilateral), and finally synapsing in the anterior horn of the spinal cord. He smiled. He owned it.
The final exam came. The anatomy practical had a "spotters" section—unlabeled wet specimens. One station had a coronal slice of the brain showing a bright red hemorrhage in the putamen. Students around him panicked. Arjun glanced at it and wrote: "Hypertensive bleed – basal ganglia region. Affects the internal capsule. Presents with contralateral hemiplegia." vishram singh neuroanatomy
He would then pass the same worn blue book to a new terrified first-year student. One night, Arjun tested himself
"Read this," he would say. "Not the others. This one." He owned it
Singh didn't just name the basal ganglia; he explained their circuitry as a loop—cortex to striatum to pallidum to thalamus and back to cortex. He called it the "extrapyramidal motor loop," but then he added a clinical pearl: "Lesion here = involuntary movements. Why? Because the brake on the thalamus is gone."