Where it is
Below the cerebellum, between the hemispheres and the spinal cord.
- Layer
- Organs
- System
- Nervous system
- Region
- Head
What it is and what it does
The brainstem joins the hemispheres to the spinal cord; in the UMN nomenclature it includes the diencephalon, mesencephalon, pons and myelencephalon. Most cranial nerves leave through it, and the motor and sensory pathways of the body pass through it. The tractography of Andrews et al. (2022) described in the dog a ventral tract running from the olfactory bulb, along the base of the brain, into the brainstem; its function is not demonstrated.
Worth remembering
From the brainstem leaves the facial nerve, which moves the lips, the ears and the eyelids.
Names
- Latin term: truncus encephali.
- In Romanian: Trunchiul cerebral (Romanian page).
In the atlas lessons
The brain and scent: where the trail ends up (7 min):
What has been demonstrated in the dog: bulb and piriform lobe activated by smell (Jia 2014), the amygdala distinguishes rewarded odors (Prichard 2020), the caudate responds to a familiar human (Berns 2015), five tracts from the bulb (Andrews 2022). What is a hypothesis: the function of each tract.