Concept
Corpus callosum
Overview
The corpus callosum (Latin for "tough body"), also callosal commissure, is a wide, thick nerve tract, consisting of a flat bundle of commissural fibers, beneath the cerebral cortex in the brain. The corpus callosum is only found in placental mammals. It spans part of the longitudinal fissure, connecting the left and right cerebral hemispheres, enabling communication between them. It is the largest white matter structure in the human brain, about 10 cm (3.9 in) in length and consisting of 200–300 million axonal projections.
A number of separate nerve tracts, classed as subregions of the corpus callosum, connect different parts of the hemispheres. The main ones are known as the genu, the rostrum, the trunk or body, and the splenium.
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
In the original texts
Passages from public-domain books where Corpus callosum is discussed.
The rounded posterior edge of the corpus callosum is visible now passing from one hemisphere to the other. Turn it still farther up, letting the medulla, etc., hang down as much as possible and trace the under surface from this edge forward. It is broad behind but narrows forward, becoming continuous with the _fornix_.
William James, Psychology
states what it is; names the idea
Thus, the diverse states of the soul are always correlative with those of the body.{19} But the better to show this dependence, in its completeness and its causes, let us here make use of comparative anatomy; let us lay bare the organs of man and of animals. How can human nature be known, if we may not derive any light from an exact comparison of the structure of man and of animals?
Julien Offray de La Mettrie, Man a Machine
names the idea
The compartment, at that end of the shell where the cirri are exserted through the aperture or lips of the operculum, is called the _carina_ (fig. 1); the compartment opposite to it is the _rostrum_,--these two lying at the ends of the longitudinal axis of the shell. Those on the sides are the _lateral compartments_; that nearest the carina, being the _carino-lateral_ (_testæ valva carino-lateralis_), that nearest…
Charles Darwin, A Monograph on the Sub-class Cirripedia
states what it is
In the same manner, also, the branches of the smaller vein, which is called the aorta, are divided: they are continued beside those of the great vein, but the tubes are smaller and the branches less than those of the great vein.
Aristotle, Aristotle's History of Animals In Ten Books
states what it is
The cerebrum is not occupied with direct impressions from without but with the ideas of such impressions. Instead of the actual sensations produced in the body, and directly appreciated by the sensory ganglia, or primitive nervous centres, the cerebrum receives only the representations of these sensations; and its consciousness is called _representative_ consciousness, to distinguish it from the original or…
Herbert Spencer, Essays
states what it is
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Opposing perspectives
Place in the tradition
Part of Free will.