Review of Medical Physiology - William F. Ganong 2002

Endocrine System, Metabolism, and Reproduction
Pituitary Gland
Morphology

General Anatomy

The Anatomy of the Pituitary Gland is shown in Fig. 22-1 and described in detail in Chapter 14. The posterior pituitary is composed largely of the axon terminals of Blood Vessels originating from the supraoptic and paraventricular nuclei of the Hypothalamus, whereas the anterior pituitary maintains a specialized vascular connection with the Brain via the hypophyseal portal vessels. The intermediate lobe develops embryonically from the dorsal wall of Rathke's pouch as an evagination of the upper pharyngeal wall, though it becomes closely fused with the posterior lobe in adults. It is separated from the anterior lobe by the remnants of Rathke's pouch and the residual cleft.



Last update: 10/08/2026

Editorial and Educational Adaptation: This material has been compiled based on the primary/original source text. The project team performed an editorial review, corrected technical inaccuracies, structured sections, and adapted the content for an educational format.

What was processed:

  • elimination of formatting defects (OCR errors, structural breaks, corrupted characters);
  • editorial organization of content;
  • standardization of terminology in accordance with academic sources;
  • verification of factual statements against the original source text.

All mentions of the author, publication year, and origin of the primary text have been preserved in accordance with the source.