Lateral ventricle at a glance
- What it is
- The lateral ventricle is a C-shaped CSF-filled cavity within each cerebral hemisphere.
- Location
- It extends through the frontal, parietal, occipital and temporal lobes as the frontal horn, body, atrium, occipital horn and temporal horn.
- Function
- It contains and circulates cerebrospinal fluid, produced by the choroid plexus, and drains into the third ventricle through the interventricular foramen.
- Body system
- Nervous · paired (left and right)
- FMA ID
- FMA78450 (Foundational Model of Anatomy)
Key facts
- Two lateral ventricles, separated by the septum pellucidum.
- Caudate nucleus lies along its lateral wall.
Clinical relevance
Enlargement of the ventricles is a feature of hydrocephalus.
Structures next to the lateral ventricle
The nearest named structures in the 3D model, measured from the centre of each part:
- Fornix of forebrain · nervous
- Thalamus · nervous
- Stria terminalis · nervous
- Lateral geniculate body · nervous
- Medial geniculate body · nervous
- Cingulate gyrus · nervous
- Commissure of fornix of forebrain · nervous
- Hippocampus · nervous
- Hair of head · skin
- Choroid plexus of cerebral hemisphere · nervous
References
- Foundational Model of Anatomy: Lateral ventricle (FMA78450). EMBL-EBI Ontology Lookup Service.
- OpenStax. Anatomy and Physiology 2e, §12.1 Basic Structure and Function of the Nervous System. 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.