Superior frontal gyrus at a glance
- What it is
- The superior frontal gyrus is the uppermost gyrus of the frontal lobe, extending onto its medial surface.
- Location
- It lies above the superior frontal sulcus along the top of the frontal lobe.
- Function
- It is part of the prefrontal cortex involved in executive functions, and its medial part contains the supplementary motor area involved in planning movement.
- Body system
- Nervous · paired (left and right)
- FMA ID
- FMA72654 (Foundational Model of Anatomy)
Key facts
- Supplied by anterior cerebral artery branches on the medial side.
- Its medial surface extends back to the paracentral lobule, which contains the leg areas of the motor and sensory cortex.
Clinical relevance
Supplementary motor area damage can cause temporary motor initiation difficulties.
Structures next to the superior frontal gyrus
The nearest named structures in the 3D model, measured from the centre of each part:
- Middle frontal gyrus · nervous
- Pericallosal artery · cardiovascular
- Inferior frontal gyrus · nervous
- Internal capsule · nervous
- Putamen · nervous
- Insula · nervous
- Cingulate gyrus · nervous
- Frontal bone · skeletal
- Interventricular foramen · nervous
- Caudate nucleus · nervous
References
- Foundational Model of Anatomy: Superior frontal gyrus (FMA72654). 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.