The brain region, sometimes referred to as the rhinencephalon, consisting of highly interconnected cortical and sub-cortical areas folded into the inner surface of the temporal lobe surrounding the brain stem and bordering on the corpus callosum that are centrally involved in the generation and expression of arousal, emotion and hunger as well as memory. The areas included are typically the amygdala, cingulate gyrus, fornix, hippocampus, parahippocampal gyrus, and the septum pellucid (see figure below).
Mid-saggital view of the limbic system showing some of the structures associated with it. The fornix is an arch-like band of white fibers projecting to the mammillary bodies (a small round paired of cell groups located at the ends of the anterior arches of the fornix, receiving hippocampal fibers from the fornix, and projecting to the anterior thalamic nuclei as well as the tegementum of the brain stem, which is implicated in emotion, memory and sexual arousal). The fornix is involved in memory and the regulation of eating. The septum pellucid is a thin, triangular, double membrane forming the medial wall of the lateral ventricles, and one of the most important pleasure centers of the brain. Its nuclei (the septal nuclei) have afferent and cholinergic efferent connections with a number of forebrain and brainstem areas including the hippocampus, the lateral hypothalamus, the tegmentum, and the amygdala. The uncut, or uncinate gyrus, is the anterior hooked end of the parahippocampal gyrus and the basomedial surface of the temporal lobe. Figure reproduced by kind permission of Patrick McCafferty, California State University, Chico.
See 22q11 deletion (CATCH 22) syndrome, Acetylcholine (AcH), Amygdala, Anterior cingulate gyrus, Arousal, Cerebral cortex (or pallium), Cholinergic neurotransmitter system, Cingulate gyrus, Dopamine, Emotion, Entorhinal cortex, Epithalamus, Hippocampus, Hypothalamus, Limbic cortices, Neuroticism, Prefrontal-frontal-striatal loops, Tegmentum, Thalamus, Ventricle