{"id":3818,"date":"2017-12-26T17:26:35","date_gmt":"2017-12-26T19:26:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/en-mol.icb.usp.br\/?page_id=3818"},"modified":"2026-08-05T16:57:27","modified_gmt":"2026-08-05T19:57:27","slug":"9-15-nervous-tissue","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/mol-en.icb.usp.br\/index.php\/9-15-nervous-tissue\/","title":{"rendered":"9-15 Nervous tissue"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"su-row\">\n  <div class=\"su-column su-column-size-1-2\"><div class=\"su-column-inner su-u-clearfix su-u-trim\"> <strong>WHITE MATTER AND GRAY MATTER IN THE BRAIN<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The upper figure is a schematic drawing of the brain and cerebellum, organs that will be analyzed in the following pages.<br \/>\nThe central nervous system has areas with a high concentrations of neuronal cell bodies and others with a high concentration of neuronal extensions, especially axons. These two regions can be well identified after a fresh recently removed brain or cerebellum is sectioned and observed macroscopically,<br \/>\nThe regions with a high concentration of neuronal cell bodies show a grayish color and are thus called <strong>gray matter<\/strong> of the central nervous system. On the other hand, the regions with a large number of neuronal extensions have a great amount of myelinated nerve fibers and as a result of the high myelin concentation has a whitish color and is named <strong>white matter<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>The gray matter is an important site of reception and integration of information and responses and the white matter contains a great number of pathways that connect different regions of the central nervous system.<\/p>\n<p>The lower figure shows the distribution of white and gray matter in the brain.<br \/>\nThe gray matter, that contains a high concentration of neuron cell bodies, is concentrated in two areas:<br \/>\n&#8211; at the the brain periphery, just below its surface, forming the <strong>cerebral cortex<\/strong>;<br \/>\n&#8211; in clusters of different sizes inside the brain, called <strong>brain nuclei<\/strong>.<br \/>\nThe white matter occupies the interior of the brain, below the cortex and surrounding the nuclei.<\/p>\n<p>The lower figure shows a cross-section of the brain and, in a simplified way, the distribution of its gray and white matter.<br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\" https:\/\/mol-en.icb.usp.br\/wp-content\/uploads\/9-15-A-en.jpg \" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\" https:\/\/mol-en.icb.usp.br\/wp-content\/uploads\/9-15-B-en.jpg \" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/mol-en.icb.usp.br\/index.php\/9-16-nervous-tissue\/\">NEXT PAGE<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/mol-en.icb.usp.br\/index.php\/9-14-nervous-tissue\/\">PREVIOUS PAGE<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/mol-en.icb.usp.br\/index.php\/9-0-nervous-tissue\/\">MENU OF THIS CHAPTER<\/a><br \/>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-3818","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mol-en.icb.usp.br\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3818","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mol-en.icb.usp.br\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mol-en.icb.usp.br\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mol-en.icb.usp.br\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mol-en.icb.usp.br\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3818"}],"version-history":[{"count":29,"href":"https:\/\/mol-en.icb.usp.br\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3818\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23933,"href":"https:\/\/mol-en.icb.usp.br\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3818\/revisions\/23933"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mol-en.icb.usp.br\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3818"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}