area postrema

A small, rounded eminence on each side of the fourth ventricle, which receives nerve fibers from the solitary nucleus , spinal cord, and adjacent areas of the medulla. The area postrema lies outside the blood-brain barrier and its functions include acting as an emetic chemoreceptor. Every claim on this page comes from the Leumas anatomy graph and carries its source.

What the area postrema is

A small, rounded eminence on each side of the fourth ventricle, which receives nerve fibers from the solitary nucleus , spinal cord, and adjacent areas of the medulla. The area postrema lies outside the blood-brain barrier and its functions include acting as an emetic chemoreceptor. The atlas records it as a nerve at the organ scale in the human body.

Where the area postrema is

It sits within the nervous and sensory systems. Not positioned individually. Drawn inside the structure this dataset says contains it — the containment is asserted, the exact spot within it is not.

What the area postrema connects to

The atlas records 4 typed relationships for it, across 2 kinds of connection. part of fourth ventricle, medulla oblongata and sensory system.

Supply and innervation

This dataset asserts no arterial supply, venous drainage or innervation for the area postrema. Only a minority of structures carry those edges here, so an empty answer means nothing has been recorded — not that there is nothing to record.

Also called

Also recorded as AP and chemoreceptor trigger zone. Searching any of those names reaches this page.

Source

Uberon multi-species anatomy ontology (Mungall et al.), CC BY 4.0. Term UBERON:0002162, version 2026-06-19, retrieved 2026-08-24. Licence: CC-BY-4.0.

• Part of: fourth ventricle, medulla oblongata and sensory system.
• A kind of: circumventricular organ.

Questions

Where is the area postrema?

It sits within the nervous and sensory systems. Not positioned individually. Drawn inside the structure this dataset says contains it — the containment is asserted, the exact spot within it is not.

What does the area postrema connect to?

Part of: fourth ventricle, medulla oblongata and sensory system.

Is the area postrema the same in other species?

Leumas holds the same relationship vocabulary for every species it carries, so where another dataset records this structure you can put the two side by side on /compare.