in this lecture we're going to talk about the cerebrovasculature or neurovasculature
so for those of you who have already gone through dr. Fox's lectures on the on the vascular system
you've already seen this diagram and so this is our basic Circle of Willis and it's
kind of a circle sort of kinda like I think of it as some kind of little guy with legs
but anyway there are two main blood supplies to the brain and they all come together here at the
Circle of Willis so the internal carotid artery which is coming in here and the two vertebral
arteries which are coming in from down here and for those of you who have already mastered the
vascular system do you remember what the source of these all both of these arteries are yes no
well anyway I'll tell you it is the subclavian arteries and so again sorry for all the words but
it's just to help you put this in context so that you know we'll name all the parts on the model and
then we'll name all the parts on the base of the brain okay so we have our two vertebral arteries
here in here these come together and form the basilar artery the basilar artery has several
branches it has the superior cerebellar artery and the posterior cerebral artery the posterior
communicating is what helps make the circle and it connects the vertebrals and the basilars with
the internal carotid the internal carotid then has two major branches the middle cerebral artery
and the anterior cerebral artery to complete the circle we have the anterior communicating artery
there are lots of other little branches pontine branches these are little branches in here are
going to feed your hypothalamus and that's not really if you're neurosurgeon you know where
they all are but the bottom line is what I want you to know are the ones that are labeled and so
in the next image we're looking at the base of the brain okay and one of the reasons you know
it's the base of the brain is that we can see our olfactory tracks that's pretty cool so again here
is our internal carotids this little squiggly here is our posterior communicating the internal
carotid splits into the middle cerebral artery and the anterior cerebral artery and then here
you can just see I'm gonna erase this right now so that I don't obscure the imagery for you you
can just see the anterior communicating is very small this again okay posterior communicating
internal carotid and here's our basilar which is formed by our two vertebrals and these also have
some branches so the pica or the posterior inferior cerebellar artery branches most often
from the vertebral artery once the vertebral it's come together to form the basilar we have another
branch here and then goes under this cranial nerve and comes out over here and that is our anterior
inferior cerebellar artery and then branching up here just before the posterior cerebral is
our superior cerebellar once you get used to this terminology it's a little tongue twisty
there cerebellar and cerebral arteries there's anteriors and inferiors and superiors and
middles but you practice it a couple of times practice drawing this imagery the one from the
diagram or practice labeling this in your spare time and you will learn all of the arteries and
in the next segment we'll talk about some of the specific areas that these arteries profuse