thalamus

[thal-uh-muhs]

noun

plural

thalami 

1. Anatomy.,  the middle part of the diencephalon through which sensory impulses pass to reach the cerebral cortex.

2. Botany.,  a receptacle or torus.

3. Also called thalamium. an apartment for women in an ancient Greek house.

thalamus

/ ˈθæləməs, θəˈlæmɪk /

noun

1. either of the two contiguous egg-shaped masses of grey matter at the base of the brain

2. both of these masses considered as a functional unit

3. the receptacle or torus of a flower

thalamus

plural

thalami 

1. The part of the vertebrate brain that lies at the rear of the forebrain. It relays sensory information to the cerebral cortex and regulates the perception of touch, pain, and temperature.

thalamus

1. The part of the brain that coordinates nerve impulses relating to the senses of sight, hearing, touch, and taste.

Other Word Forms

• thalamic adjective
• thalamically adverb
• postthalamic adjective
• subthalamic adjective
• transthalamic adjective

Word History and Origins

Origin of thalamus¹

1695–1705; < New Latin; Latin: bedroom < Greek thálamos

Word History and Origins

Origin of thalamus¹

C18: from Latin, Greek thalamos inner room; probably related to Greek tholos vault

Example Sentences

In the brains of participants with psychosis, researchers found that sensory regions in the cortex were more weakly connected to each other and more strongly connected to the thalamus, the brain's information relay station.

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The team focused on two main pathways, the M2-projecting, which is connected to the secondary motor cortex, and the AD-projecting, which is connected to the anterior thalamus.

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In a new study recently published in the journal PLoS Biology, researchers from LMU, the University of Freiburg, and the Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience analyzed neural activity in the visual thalamus.

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This technical advance allowed them to identify previously unseen pathways connecting the brainstem, thalamus, hypothalamus, basal forebrain, and cerebral cortex.

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Traditionally believed to originate from one brain circuit linking the thalamus and cortex, the team's findings, published today in Scientific Reports, suggest that the axons in memory centers of the hippocampus play a role.

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