The cingulate sulcus is the groove on the inner (medial) face of each hemisphere that arches over the corpus callosum along the upper edge of the cingulate gyrus. It separates the cingulate gyrus below from the frontal and parietal lobes above, and its back end turns up to the top edge of the hemisphere as the marginal sulcus. [1][2][3]
The 3D brain needs JavaScript. The text below still says where the cingulate sulcus is and what it does.
Opens cut down the midline and seen from the left, so you look at the inner face of the right hemisphere: the cingulate gyrus is lit in blue, the frontal and parietal lobes in orange. The groove runs where blue meets orange; the side (sagittal) slice button cuts across it. Drag to turn, pinch or scroll to zoom, tap any part to name it; .
A groove has no shape of its own; lit: the parts on either side of it. Lit: below, the cingulate gyrus in blue; above, the frontal and parietal lobes in orange. The cingulate gyrus lies immediately above the corpus callosum, and the cingulate cortex continues up into the cingulate sulcus; above the groove lie the inner faces of the frontal and parietal lobes (the superior frontal gyrus, the paracentral lobule and the precuneus). It runs on the inner face of the hemisphere, so this page opens cut down the midline. [1][3][4]
Where it is
Below it lies the cingulate gyrus, immediately above the corpus callosum; the cingulate cortex includes the whole gyrus and its continuation into the cingulate sulcus. [1]
Its end, the marginal sulcus, turns up to the top edge of the hemisphere and separates the paracentral lobule in front from the precuneus behind. [2][6]
Its backward continuation, the subparietal sulcus, runs above the splenium of the corpus callosum and separates the precuneus from the back part of the cingulate gyrus. [4]
What it does
It is a landmark rather than a working part, but cortex lines it: the part of the supplementary motor area in the cingulate sulcus can be split into three cingulate motor areas. [7]
In monkeys, motor areas of the cingulate sulcus are connected with the ventral anterior and ventral lateral nuclei of the thalamus. [1]
Its branches frame the paracentral lobule, which handles movement and touch for the opposite leg: the paracentral sulcus, a branch of the cingulate sulcus, forms its front border and the marginal sulcus its back border. [3][8][2]
Other names
Its end is called the marginal sulcus (the marginal branch, or margin, of the cingulate sulcus), and the paracentral sulcus is part of it. Wikipedia covers the groove in its Cingulate cortex article. [2][8][1]
Size
The model has no shape for the cingulate sulcus, so the groove itself is not measured here. On the left hemisphere, the stretch where the cingulate gyrus and the frontal and parietal lobes come within 3 mm of each other fits in a box about 116 mm front to back, 53 mm top to bottom and 21 mm side to side (the box that stretch fits in, not the groove’s length along its bends or its depth). [9]
Facts describe anatomy and normal function only. The 3D model is the adult male BodyParts3D brain (credits and licence); real brains vary in size and shape, so its measurements describe one model, not anyone’s brain.