Translate:
English
Chinese (S)
Chinese (T)
Croatian
Dutch
French
German
Hebrew
Italian
Japanese
Korean
Portuguese
Russian
Serbian
Spanish
Swedish
Turkish
Additional
Pituitary gland
English Wikipedia - The Free Encyclopedia
Download this dictionary
Pituitary gland
In
vertebrate
anatomy
, the
pituitary gland
, or
hypophysis
, is an
endocrine gland
about the size of a pea and weighing in humans. It is a protrusion off the bottom of the
hypothalamus
at the base of the
brain
. The hypophysis rests upon the
hypophysial fossa
of the
sphenoid bone
in the center of the
middle cranial fossa
and is surrounded by a small bony cavity (
sella turcica
) covered by a
dural
fold (
diaphragma sellae
). The
anterior pituitary
(or adenohypophysis) is a lobe of the gland that regulates several physiological processes (including stress, growth, reproduction, and lactation). The
intermediate lobe
synthesizes and secretes
melanocyte-stimulating hormone
. The
posterior pituitary
(or neurohypophysis) is a lobe of the gland that is functionally connected to the
hypothalamus
by the
median eminence
via a small tube called the
pituitary stalk
(also called the infundibular stalk or the infundibulum).
See more at Wikipedia.org...
© This article uses material from
Wikipedia
®
and is licensed under the
GNU Free Documentation License
and under the
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License