Putamen at a glance
- What it is
- The putamen is the large lateral nucleus of the basal ganglia and part of the striatum.
- Location
- It lies lateral to the globus pallidus, medial to the external capsule, forming the lentiform nucleus with the globus pallidus.
- Function
- With the caudate it receives cortical input and is involved in motor control, learning of habits and movement regulation.
- Body system
- Nervous · paired (left and right)
- FMA ID
- FMA72829 (Foundational Model of Anatomy)
Key facts
- Receives dopaminergic input from the substantia nigra.
- Supplied by lenticulostriate arteries.
Clinical relevance
In Parkinson disease, loss of nigral neurons depletes dopamine most severely in the putamen. The putamen itself degenerates in Huntington disease and multiple system atrophy.
Structures next to the putamen
The nearest named structures in the 3D model, measured from the centre of each part:
- Globus pallidus · nervous
- Anterolateral central branch of middle cerebral artery · cardiovascular
- Caudate nucleus · nervous
- Internal capsule · nervous
- Insula · nervous
- Cingulate gyrus · nervous
- Stria terminalis · nervous
- Amygdala · nervous
- Fornix of forebrain · nervous
- Sphenoid part of middle cerebral artery · cardiovascular
References
- Foundational Model of Anatomy: Putamen (FMA72829). 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.