Lateral Surface Sulci

Lateral Surface Gyri

Ventral Surface

Medial Surface

You will be looking more closely at the ladmarks on the medial surface of the cortex in the next labroatory session, but now is as good a time as any for a preview.

Identify the frontal pole and occipital pole. Can you see the corpus callosum? The gyrus wrapping around the corpus callosum is the cingulate gyrus (shaded purple in the rollover image below), and the cingulate sulcus separates the cingulate gyrus from the superior frontal gyrus in the frontal lobe. Follow the cingulate sulcus from the frontal pole back until it appears to ascend toward the dorsal surface of the hemisphere. You can just barely see a sulcus anterior to the cingulate sulcus that seems to be coming from the lateral surface of the brain. That is the central sulcus, and the cortex surrounding the central sulcus is referred to as the paracentral lobule (shaded blue in the rollover image). By the way, can you find the gyrus rectus in this medial view?

Posterior, you will find the occipital lobe which is separated from the parietal lobe by the deep parietal occipital sulcus. Running almost perpendicular to the parietal occipital sulcus to the posterior tip of the occipital lobe is the calcarine fissure which defines the primary visual cortex. Surrounding the calcarine fissure is the cuneus (green) and lingual (yellow) gyrus.

On the anterior tip of the medial temporal lobe you will again find the uncus, and extending back from the uncus (partially hidden by the brainstem) is the parahippocampal gyrus. In laboratory 6 we will find the hippocampus, a structurally more primitive cortical gyrus, wrapped into the lateral ventricle within the parahippocampal gyrus.

Move the cursor over the image to see the labels.