Posterior communicating artery at a glance
- What it is
- An artery of the circle of Willis connecting the internal carotid and posterior cerebral arteries.
- Location
- It runs backward from the internal carotid artery to join the posterior cerebral artery, lying above the oculomotor nerve.
- Function
- It links the anterior (carotid) and posterior (vertebrobasilar) circulations and supplies parts of the thalamus and hypothalamus.
- Body system
- Cardiovascular · paired (left and right)
- FMA ID
- FMA50085 (Foundational Model of Anatomy)
Key facts
- It is a key part of the circle of Willis.
- In about one in five people it is large and supplies most of the posterior cerebral artery territory (a fetal-type origin).
Clinical relevance
Aneurysms here can compress the oculomotor nerve and cause a dilated pupil.
Structures next to the posterior communicating artery
The nearest named structures in the 3D model, measured from the centre of each part:
- Precommunicating part of posterior cerebral artery · cardiovascular
- Pituitary gland · endocrine
- Trochlear nerve · nervous
- Optic chiasm · nervous
- Ophthalmic nerve · nervous
- Anterior communicating artery · cardiovascular
- Hypothalamus · nervous
- Anterior cerebral artery · cardiovascular
- Mammillary body · nervous
- Lamina terminalis · nervous
References
- Foundational Model of Anatomy: Posterior communicating artery (FMA50085). 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.