ABSTRACT
In this study, we examined the distribution of the caudal cerebral artery on the surface of the capybara brain and determined the territory irrigated by this vessel. A total of 68 brain hemispheres from female and male capybaras (Hydrochoerus hydrochaeris) were injected with Latex 603 or Latex Frasca, stained with red and blue pigments and fixed in twenty per cent formalin. The caudal cerebral artery arose from the terminal branch of the basilar artery rostrally to the rrot of the oculomotor nerve. Immediately after its emergence, the caudal cerebral artery gave off the rostral tectal artery in 27,9 per cent of the specimens and then crossed the cerebral peduncles dorsally to the geneculate bodies and to the pulvinar to give off small perforating branches towards these structures. During its course ober the surface of the hippocampal gyrus, the caudal cerebral artery gave off small hippocampal branches dorsally, the caudal choroidal artery rostrally, and a variable number of cortical braches caudally. The terminal branches of the caudal cerebral artery crossed the splenium of the corpus callosum and were distributed on the caudo-medial surface of the brain hemisphere. The territorial limits of the caudal cerebral artery included the thalamus, the rostral colliculum, part of the caudal colliculum, the caudal face of the pyriform lobe, the tentorial surface, the retrosplenic portion of the medial surface, and a narrow area of the dorso-lateral face of the brain hemisphere, along the margins of the dorso longitudinal and transverse fissures of the brain.