midbrain

mid- +‎ brain

midbrain (plural midbrains)

1. (neuroanatomy) A part of the brain located rostral to the pons and caudal to the thalamus and the basal ganglia, composed of the tectum (dorsal portion) and the tegmentum (ventral portion).
   • 1981, William Irwin Thompson, The Time Falling Bodies Take to Light: Mythology, Sexuality and the Origins of Culture, London: Rider/Hutchinson & Co., page 226:

     When the instinctive and subconscious world of the snake is confronted in initiation, the vital force of the snake rises and floods the second brain, the midbrain, the limbic ring.

• mesencephalon

• tectum
• tegmentum

• brain stem