nucleus accumbens

A region of the brain consisting of a collection of neurons located in the forebrain ventral to the caudate and putamen. (caudoputamen in rodent) and continuous with these structures. There is no distinct boundary between the nucleus accumbens and the caudate/putamen, but in rodents, it can be identified by its lack of traversing fiber bundles in comparison to the dorsal striatum. Its principle neuron is the medium spiny neuron. Together with the neostriatum (caudate nucleus and putamen), the nucleus accumbens forms the striatum. Every claim on this page comes from the Leumas anatomy graph and carries its source.

What the nucleus accumbens is

A region of the brain consisting of a collection of neurons located in the forebrain ventral to the caudate and putamen. (caudoputamen in rodent) and continuous with these structures. There is no distinct boundary between the nucleus accumbens and the caudate/putamen, but in rodents, it can be identified by its lack of traversing fiber bundles in comparison to the dorsal striatum. Its principle neuron is the medium spiny neuron. Together with the neostriatum (caudate nucleus and putamen), the nucleus accumbens forms the striatum. The atlas records it as a nerve at the organ scale in the human body.

Where the nucleus accumbens is

It sits within the nervous system. 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 nucleus accumbens connects to

The atlas records 9 typed relationships for it, across 4 kinds of connection. part of cerebral hemisphere, limbic system and telencephalon, and 1 more.

Supply and innervation

This dataset asserts no arterial supply, venous drainage or innervation for the nucleus accumbens. 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 accumbens nucleus, colliculus of caudate nucleus, nucleus accumbens septi and colliculus nuclei caudati. Searching any of those names reaches this page.

Source

Uberon multi-species anatomy ontology (Mungall et al.), CC BY 4.0. Term UBERON:0001882, version 2026-06-19, retrieved 2026-08-24. Licence: CC-BY-4.0.

• Part of: cerebral hemisphere, limbic system, telencephalon and ventral striatum.
• A kind of: nucleus of brain.
• contributes to morphology of: ventral striatum and island of Calleja.
• contains: core of nucleus accumbens and shell of nucleus accumbens.

Questions

Where is the nucleus accumbens?

It sits within the nervous system. 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 nucleus accumbens connect to?

Part of: cerebral hemisphere, limbic system, telencephalon and ventral striatum.

Is the nucleus accumbens 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.