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Mammillary Bodies

  • Reference work entry
  • First Online:
Encyclopedia of Clinical Neuropsychology

  • 119 Accesses

Synonyms

Corpus mamillare; Mammillary nuclei; Mammillary tubercle of hypothalamus also spelled as mammillary bodies (British)

Structure

The mammillary bodies are composed of a pair of nuclei (medial and lateral) and associated gray matter in the posterior hypothalamus, which itself is part of the diencephalon. These small, spherical structures derive their name from their breast-shaped appearance, especially as viewed on coronal section. They are located in the interpeduncular fossa of the midbrain, rostral to the posterior perforated substance, thereby forming the terminals of the anterior pillars of the fornix. Both groups of mammillary nuclei receive dense afferent projections from the hippocampal formation via the fornix. In addition to hippocampal inputs, the medial mammillary nuclei receive projections from the rostral subiculum, and the lateral mammillary nuclei receive projections from the pre-, para-, and postsubicula. As its name suggests, the mammillothalamic tract connects...

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, York University, Toronto, ON, Canada

    Jill B. Rich

Authors
  1. Jill B. Rich
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Correspondence to Jill B. Rich .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA, USA

    Jeffrey S. Kreutzer

  2. Kessler Foundation, Pleasant Valley Way, West Orange, NJ, USA

    John DeLuca

  3. Independent Practice, Wynnewood, PA, USA

    Bruce Caplan

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Rich, J.B. (2018). Mammillary Bodies. In: Kreutzer, J.S., DeLuca, J., Caplan, B. (eds) Encyclopedia of Clinical Neuropsychology. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-57111-9_1133

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