At the level of the medulla oblongata, the fibers of the tracts decussate and are continued in the medial lemniscus, on to the thalamus and relayed from there through the internal capsule and transmitted to the somatosensory cortex.

The third-order neurons are in the ventral posterolateral nucleus in the thalamus and fibres from these ascend to the postcentral gyrus.

Sensory information from the upper half of the body is received at the cervical level of the spinal cord and carried in the cuneate tract, and information from the lower body is received at the lumbar level and carried in the gracile tract.

[2] The DCML pathway is made up of the axons of first, second, and third-order sensory neurons, beginning in the dorsal root ganglia.

The gracile fasciculus carries sensory information from the lower half of the body entering the spinal cord at the lumbar level.

The column reaches the junction between the spinal cord and the medulla oblongata, where lower body axons in the gracile fasciculus connect (synapse) with neurons in the gracile nucleus, and upper body axons in the cuneate fasciculus synapse with neurons in the cuneate nucleus.

[6] First-order neurons secrete substance P in the dorsal horn as a chemical mediator of pain signaling.

At the medulla, the medial lemniscus is orientated perpendicular to the way the fibres travelled in their tracts in the posterior column.

It also allows for the ability known as haptic perception (stereognosis), to determine what an unknown object is, using the hands without visual or audio input.

Fine touch is detected by cutaneous receptors called tactile corpuscles that lie in the dermis of the skin close to the epidermis.

Damage to the dorsal column-medial lemniscus pathway below the crossing point of its fibers results in loss of vibration and joint sense (proprioception) on the same side of the body as the lesion.

Damage above the crossing point result a loss of vibration and joint sense on the opposite side of the body to the lesion.