White matter of cerebral hemisphere at a glance
- What it is
- The white matter of the cerebral hemisphere consists of myelinated axons under the cortex that connect brain regions.
- Location
- It lies deep to the grey matter cortex and surrounds the basal ganglia, thalamus and ventricles.
- Function
- It carries association, commissural and projection fibres, allowing communication within and between hemispheres and with the brainstem and spinal cord.
- Body system
- Nervous · paired (left and right)
- FMA ID
- FMA260794 (Foundational Model of Anatomy)
Key facts
- Forms the corona radiata and internal capsule.
- Myelin is produced by oligodendrocytes.
Clinical relevance
Demyelinating diseases such as multiple sclerosis damage white matter.
Structures next to the white matter of cerebral hemisphere
The nearest named structures in the 3D model, measured from the centre of each part:
- Insula · nervous
- Cingulate gyrus · nervous
- Internal capsule · nervous
- Putamen · nervous
- Parietal bone · skeletal
- Precentral gyrus · nervous
- Caudate nucleus · nervous
- Lateral ventricle · nervous
- Globus pallidus · nervous
- Stria terminalis · nervous
References
- Foundational Model of Anatomy: White matter of cerebral hemisphere (FMA260794). 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.