Cingulate gyrus and sulcus (Middle anterior part)

At a glance

English

Cingulate gyrus and sulcus (Middle anterior part)

System

Brain and spinal cord

Region

Head

Side

Paired, left and right

About the cingulate gyrus and sulcus (middle anterior part)

The cingulate gyrus is a long curved ridge on the medial surface of the cerebral hemisphere. It wraps around the corpus callosum like a belt, which is what its Latin name means, and it is separated from the callosum below by the callosal sulcus and from the frontal and parietal cortex above by the cingulate sulcus. For mapping purposes the gyrus and the sulcus above it are cut into segments from front to back. This page shows the middle anterior segment, which lies above the forward part of the callosal trunk, behind the region that curls round the genu.

This segment corresponds largely to what many authors now call the anterior midcingulate cortex, roughly the hind part of Brodmann area 24 and the adjoining area 32 in the depths of the sulcus. Its cortex lacks a well developed granular layer. The banks of the cingulate sulcus here hold cingulate motor areas, which connect with the motor thalamus (ventral anterior and ventral lateral nuclei) and with the premotor and supplementary motor cortex. Beneath the grey matter runs the cingulum, a long association bundle that links the cingulate cortex with the parahippocampal and entorhinal regions.

Together with the rest of the cingulate cortex the region belongs to the limbic lobe. It takes input from the midline and intralaminar thalamic nuclei and from widespread neocortex, and it is part of the loop through the anterior thalamus, cingulum and hippocampal formation often called the Papez circuit. Functionally the middle cingulate zone ties emotion and motivation to action: it is active when a task brings conflict between competing responses, when an error is made, and when pain calls for a change of behaviour.

Imaging studies have found smaller volume or altered activity of the anterior and middle cingulate cortex in schizophrenia and in depression. Surgical lesions of this area (cingulotomy) have been used for intractable pain and severe obsessive-compulsive disorder, which shows how closely it is bound up with distress and drive.

Function and supply

Function

Links emotional and motivational signals to the choice and monitoring of movement; detects conflict and errors and helps adjust behaviour, with a share in pain processing.

Blood supply

Callosomarginal and pericallosal branches of the anterior cerebral artery.