mammillary body
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: 1.20 in modern English
29
Scrabble Score
14
Letters
4
Syllables
9
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
One of a pair of small round bodies, located on the undersurface of the human brain, that act as a relay for impulses coming from the amygdalae and hippocampi to the thalamus, and (as part of the diencephalon) form part of the limbic system.
Example Sentences
- "The mammillary body is the most posterior part of the hypothalamus; there exist medially large and small cell divisions."
- "The anterior column of the fornix extends inferiorly to converge upon the anterolateral aspect of the mammillary body."
- "Mair, Warrington, and Weiskrantz (1979) suggested that the mammillary body lesions (present in each of these patients) may account for the memory loss. Lesions restricted to the mammillary bodies have not been associated with deficits on DNMS^([delayed non-match to sample]) tasks in monkeys (Aggleton & Mishkin, 1985); however, deficits have been found on spatial memory tasks in monkeys (Parker & Gaffan, 1997) and in rats (Sziklas & Petrides, 1998)."
Etymology
Inflected Forms
Phrases
lateral mammillary nucleus
medial mammillary nucleus