Anterior choroidal artery at a glance
- What it is
- The anterior choroidal artery is a small branch of the internal carotid artery that supplies deep brain structures and the choroid plexus.
- Location
- It arises from the internal carotid artery shortly beyond the posterior communicating artery, runs back along the optic tract and enters the inferior horn of the lateral ventricle through the choroidal fissure.
- Function
- It supplies the choroid plexus of the lateral ventricle, the optic tract, parts of the internal capsule (especially the posterior limb), the globus pallidus and part of the hippocampus.
- Body system
- Cardiovascular · paired (left and right)
- FMA ID
- FMA50088 (Foundational Model of Anatomy)
Key facts
- It is a narrow vessel with a long course.
Clinical relevance
Occlusion can cause weakness on the opposite side of the body, loss of sensation and visual field defects.
Structures next to the anterior choroidal artery
The nearest named structures in the 3D model, measured from the centre of each part:
- Hippocampus · nervous
- Lateral geniculate body · nervous
- Optic tract · nervous
- Parahippocampal gyrus · nervous
- Fusiform gyrus · nervous
- Medial geniculate body · nervous
- Postcommunicating part of posterior cerebral artery · cardiovascular
- Amygdala · nervous
- Fornix of forebrain · nervous
- Stria terminalis · nervous
References
- Foundational Model of Anatomy: Anterior choroidal artery (FMA50088). EMBL-EBI Ontology Lookup Service.
- OpenStax. Anatomy and Physiology 2e, §20.1 Structure and Function of Blood Vessels. Rice University, 2022.
- Mitsuhashi N. et al. (2009). BodyParts3D: 3D structure database for anatomical concepts. Nucleic Acids Research 37, D782–D785. Data © The Database Center for Life Science, CC BY 4.0.
Related anatomy
Explore the whole body in the interactive 3D human anatomy model, or browse the A–Z list of human structures.