Medicine & BodyGreek → English
Thalamus
/ˈθæləməs/noun
The paired mass of grey matter near the centre of the brain that relays sensory signals to the cortex.
The Greek roots
θάλαμος
thálamos
inner chamber
Literally: “inner room”
Follow a root:θάλαμος2 words
The story of the word
θάλαμος was the inner room of a Greek house and, in poetry, the bridal chamber, which is why a wedding song is an epithalamium. Galen used the plural for chambers in the brain, and anatomists kept the word for the egg-shaped relay that nearly all sensory traffic passes through on its way to the cortex. Smell is the exception; it takes a different road entirely.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → English
- First recorded
- 18th century
Same family
hypothalamusepithalamiumthalamic
In a sentence
A small stroke in the thalamus can knock out sensation down one whole side.