posterior cerebral artery

The posterior cerebral artery (PCA) is one of a pair of blood vessels that supplies oxygenated blood to the posterior aspect of the brain in human anatomy]. It arises near the intersection of the posterior communicating artery and the basilar artery and connects with the ipsilateral middle cerebral artery (MCA) and internal carotid artery via the posterior communicating artery (PCommA). [WP,unvetted]. Every claim on this page comes from the Leumas anatomy graph and carries its source.

What the posterior cerebral artery is

The posterior cerebral artery (PCA) is one of a pair of blood vessels that supplies oxygenated blood to the posterior aspect of the brain in human anatomy]. It arises near the intersection of the posterior communicating artery and the basilar artery and connects with the ipsilateral middle cerebral artery (MCA) and internal carotid artery via the posterior communicating artery (PCommA). [WP,unvetted]. The atlas records it as a artery at the organ scale in the human body.

Where the posterior cerebral artery is

It sits in the head, within the cardiovascular 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 posterior cerebral artery connects to

The atlas records 14 typed relationships for it, across 5 kinds of connection. part of basilar artery, blood vasculature and circle of Willis, and 3 more.

Supply and innervation

This dataset asserts no arterial supply, venous drainage or innervation for the posterior cerebral artery. 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 arteria cerebri posterior. Searching any of those names reaches this page.

Source

Uberon multi-species anatomy ontology (Mungall et al.), CC BY 4.0. Term UBERON:0001636, version 2026-06-19, retrieved 2026-08-24. Licence: CC-BY-4.0.

• Part of: basilar artery, blood vasculature, circle of Willis, head, material anatomical entity and vasculature of head.
• A kind of: anatomical structure, blood vessel, branch of basilar artery and systemic artery.
• Connected to: calcarine artery and mesencephalic artery.
• Supplies: occipital lobe.
• contains: posterior choroidal artery.

Questions

Where is the posterior cerebral artery?

It sits in the head, within the cardiovascular 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 posterior cerebral artery connect to?

Part of: basilar artery, blood vasculature, circle of Willis, head, material anatomical entity and vasculature of head.

Is the posterior cerebral artery 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.