brain

The brain is the center of the nervous system in all vertebrate, and most invertebrate, animals. Some primitive animals such as jellyfish and starfish have a decentralized nervous system without a brain, while sponges lack any nervous system at all. In vertebrates, the brain is located in the head, protected by the skull and close to the primary sensory apparatus of vision, hearing, balance, taste, and smell[WP]. Every claim on this page comes from the Leumas anatomy graph and carries its source.

What the brain is

The brain is the center of the nervous system in all vertebrate, and most invertebrate, animals. Some primitive animals such as jellyfish and starfish have a decentralized nervous system without a brain, while sponges lack any nervous system at all. In vertebrates, the brain is located in the head, protected by the skull and close to the primary sensory apparatus of vision, hearing, balance, taste, and smell[WP]. The atlas records it as a organ at the organ scale in the human body.

Where the brain is

It sits within the nervous system. Positioned deliberately as part of this species body plan.

What the brain connects to

The atlas records 108 typed relationships for it, across 11 kinds of connection. part of central nervous system.

Supply and innervation

Arterial supply: internal carotid artery. Venous drainage: internal jugular vein.

Also called

Also recorded as encephalon, suprasegmental levels of nervous system, suprasegmental structures, synganglion and the brain. Searching any of those names reaches this page.

Source

Uberon multi-species anatomy ontology (Mungall et al.), CC BY 4.0. Term UBERON:0000955, version 2026-06-19, retrieved 2026-08-24. Licence: CC-BY-4.0.

• Part of: central nervous system.
• A kind of: anatomical structure and organ.
• contains: anterior ascending limb of lateral sulcus, anterior calcarine sulcus, anterior commissure, anterior commissure anterior part, anterior horizontal limb of lateral sulcus and anterior occipital sulcus, and 84 more.
• contributes to morphology of: nervous system, brainstem, forebrain, hindbrain and midbrain.
• Develops from: future brain and neuroectoderm.
• right of: left auditory cortex and right cerebral hemisphere.
• left of: left cerebral hemisphere and right auditory cortex.
• surrounded by: brain arachnoid mater.

Questions

Where is the brain?

It sits within the nervous system. Positioned deliberately as part of this species body plan.

What does the brain connect to?

Part of: central nervous system.

Is the brain 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.