Peduncle of midbrain at a glance
- Also called
- Cerebral peduncle
- What it is
- The cerebral peduncles are paired columns on the ventral midbrain carrying descending fibres from the cerebral cortex.
- Location
- They emerge from the base of the brain on either side of the interpeduncular fossa and run toward the cerebral hemispheres.
- Function
- They carry corticospinal, corticobulbar and corticopontine fibres in the crus cerebri to the brainstem and spinal cord.
- Body system
- Nervous · single, midline structure
- FMA ID
- FMA62394 (Foundational Model of Anatomy)
Key facts
- Crus cerebri is the anterior part; the tegmentum and substantia nigra lie behind it.
- The oculomotor nerve emerges medially.
Structures next to the peduncle of midbrain
The nearest named structures in the 3D model, measured from the centre of each part:
- Midbrain · nervous
- Mammillary body · nervous
- Precommunicating part of posterior cerebral artery · cardiovascular
- Optic tract · nervous
- Third ventricle · nervous
- Cerebral aqueduct · nervous
- Postcommunicating part of posterior cerebral artery · cardiovascular
- Hypothalamus · nervous
- Posterior commissure · nervous
- Superior cerebellar artery · cardiovascular
References
- Foundational Model of Anatomy: Peduncle of midbrain (FMA62394). 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.
Explore the whole body in the interactive 3D human anatomy model, or browse the A–Z list of human structures.