| Lateral vestibular nucleus | |
| Latin: | nucleus vestibularis lateralis |
The lateral vestibular nucleus (Deiters's nucleus) is the continuation upward and lateralward of the principal nucleus, and in it terminate many of the ascending branches of the vestibular nerve.
It consists of very large multipolar cells whose axons form an important part of the posterior longitudinal bundle (aka medial longitudinal fasciculus) of the same and the opposite side.
The axons bifurcate as they enter the posterior longitudinal bundle,
Other fibers are said to pass directly to the vestibulospinal fasciculus without passing into the posterior longitudinal bundle.
The fibers which pass into the vestibulospinal fasciculus are intimately concerned with equilibratory reflexes.
Other axons from Deiters’s nucleus are supposed to cross and ascend in the opposite medial lemniscus to the ventro-lateral nuclei of the thalamus; still other fibers pass into the cerebellum with the inferior peduncle and are distributed to the cortex of the vermis and the roof nuclei of the cerebellum; according to Cajal they merely pass through the nucleus fastigii on their way to the cortex of the vermis and the hemisphere.
Deiter's nucleus was named after German neuroanatomist Otto Friedrich Karl Deiters (1834–1863).