Each of these nerves relays sensation (including pain) from a particular region of skin to the brain.

Along the thorax and abdomen, the dermatomes are like a stack of discs forming a human, each supplied by a different spinal nerve.

Although the general pattern is similar in all people, the precise areas of innervation are as unique to an individual as fingerprints.

A dermatome is an area of skin supplied by sensory neurons that arise from a spinal nerve ganglion.

Symptoms that follow a dermatome (e.g. like pain or a rash) may indicate a pathology that involves the related nerve root.