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Why can a cordotomy eliminate temperature sensation along with pain sensation?

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thermoreception in polar bears — Thermoreception Warm-blooded animals, such as polar bears, maintain stable body temperatures and adapt to substantial geographic and seasonal temperature fluctuations. Thermal adaptation is supported by the function of sensory structures called thermoreceptors.

A cordotomy eliminates temperature sensation alongside pain because both modalities share the same anatomical pathway within the spinal cord.

Specifically, signals related to thermal sense and pain are conveyed by fibers that ascend through the lateral spinothalamic tract. During a percutaneous cordotomy, this tract is surgically interrupted to alleviate chronic pain. Because the neurons responsible for transmitting temperature information also travel within this specific bundle of axons, the procedure inadvertently severs the pathway required for the brain to receive and process thermal input from the body.1

Once these fibers are interrupted, the sensory impulses cannot reach the thalamus or the subsequent cortical regions responsible for conscious temperature perception, effectively resulting in the loss of both pain and thermal sensitivity on the side of the body contralateral to the surgery.21