Medial occipital artery at a glance
- What it is
- A branch of the posterior cerebral artery supplying the medial occipital lobe.
- Location
- It arises from the posterior cerebral artery and divides into the calcarine, parieto-occipital and other branches along the medial surface of the occipital lobe.
- Function
- It supplies the visual cortex around the calcarine sulcus, the cuneus and lingual gyrus.
- Body system
- Cardiovascular · paired (left and right)
- FMA ID
- FMA50645 (Foundational Model of Anatomy)
Key facts
- The calcarine branch supplies the primary visual cortex.
- Its calcarine branch, running in the calcarine sulcus, is the main supply of the primary visual cortex.
Clinical relevance
Occlusion of the posterior cerebral artery branches causes contralateral homonymous hemianopia.
Structures next to the medial occipital artery
The nearest named structures in the 3D model, measured from the centre of each part:
- Occipital lobe · nervous
- Superior parietal lobule · nervous
- Occipital bone · skeletal
- Angular gyrus · nervous
- Pineal body · endocrine
- Parietal bone · skeletal
- Hair of head · skin
- Commissure of fornix of forebrain · nervous
- Lateral ventricle · nervous
- Superior colliculus · nervous
References
- Foundational Model of Anatomy: Medial occipital artery (FMA50645). 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.
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