Corpus: Tuber cinereum

In neuroanatomy, the term tuber cinereum refers to a bump of grey matter located in the interpeduncular fossa at the base of the 3rd ventricle. Rostral to the tuberosity is the optic chiasm, dorsal are the corpora mamillaria.

The cinereal tuberosity is part of the middle ventral hypothalamus. It has a small swelling, the eminentia mediana, and runs inferiorly into the pituitary stalk. Anteriorly it merges into the lamina terminalis, laterally into the substantia perforata anterior of the hypothalamus.

The tuber cinereum consists of several nuclei, the nucleus ventromedialis, the nucleus dorsomedialis, the nucleus infundibularis and the nuclei tuberales.

The tuber cinereum contains the middle core group of the hypothalamus, which is responsible for the production of releasing and inhibiting hormones, among other things. The axons of the nerve cells of the infundibular nucleus end at the pituitary stalk for this purpose.