End artery End artery An end artery (or terminal artery) is an artery that is the only supply of oxygenated blood to a portion of tissue. Arteries which do not anastomose with their neighbors are called end arteries. There is no collateral circulation present besides the end arteries. Examples of an end artery include the splenic artery that supplies the spleen and the renal artery that supplies the kidneys. End arteries are of particular interest to medicine where they supply the heart or brain because if the arteries are occluded, the tissue is completely cut off, leading to a myocardial infarction or
Posterior spinal artery anastomosis around the posterior roots of the spinal nerves, and communicate, by means of very tortuous transverse branches, with the vessels of the opposite side. Close to its origin each posterior spinal artery gives off an ascending branch, which ends ipsilaterally near the fourth ventricle. The posterior spinal artery can often originate from the posterior inferior cerebellar artery, rather than the vertebral. Most cranially, the posterior spinal artery supplies the dorsal column of the closed medulla containing fasiculus gracilis, gracile nucleus, fasciculus cuneatus, and cuneate nucleus. At the spinal cord level, the posterior spinal artery supplies the dorsal and lateral