[Verse 1] Beneath the cortex, deeper than the fold, A commonwealth of nuclei, mapped and named and old — Caudate curls around the ventricle like a fist, Putamen and pallidus can't afford to be missed. Globus pallidus internus, the gatekeeper of motion, Subthalamic nucleus firing with devotion — Direct pathway opens, indirect slams shut, Hyperdirect bypasses the loop, a faster cut. Substantia nigra pars compacta, dopamine in hand, Without it, Parkinson's reclaims the promised land. [Chorus] Name it, map it, spare it — white matter is a road, Not a substance to traverse, but a structured zip code. Meyer's loop swings forward, temporal lobe beware, Arcuate for language, corticospinal laid bare — Subcortical stimulation tells you what the tractograph can't swear. [Verse 2] The thalamus: a relay town with districts, not a blur — VPL for body, VPM for what the face endures, VL feeds the motor cortex, VA takes the basal share, Pulvinar watches visual space with wide associative stare. Internal medullary lamina cleaves the nuclear mass — Damage the thalamus broadly and alertness fades too fast. CM and Pf for arousal, MD for your frontal lobe, LGN and MGN — vision, sound decoded in the globe. Thalamic pain syndrome: the relay gone corrupt, Burning allodynia when the signal is abrupt. [Chorus] Name it, map it, spare it — white matter is a road, Not a substance to traverse, but a structured zip code. Meyer's loop swings forward, temporal lobe beware, Arcuate for language, corticospinal laid bare — Subcortical stimulation tells you what the tractograph can't swear. [Verse 3] Hypothalamus small, but consequence enormous — Pituitary stalk cut: fluid balance, gone before us. Mammillary bodies anchor the fornix on its arc, Bilateral column injury leaves memory in the dark. Hippocampus, amygdala, cingulum — the limbic weave, Fornix crus to body, column — sever both and you'll bereave. Anterior perforated substance, basal forebrain below, Substantia innominata — where the cholinergics flow. Craniopharyngioma surgery near the tuber cinereum — Hypothalamic imbalance, the cost of the compendium. [Bridge] The corpus callosum: rostrum, genu, body, splenium, isthmus sealed — Disconnect the halves and alien hand syndrome is revealed. Anterior commissure links your temporal poles across the gap, DTI shows tracts but edema folds the map. Trust the stimulator probe where tractography misleads — Awake craniotomy grammar, naming, reading, what the patient needs. Inferior fronto-occipital, uncinate, frontal aslant — Ventral semantic streaming, speech initiation's slant. [Chorus] Name it, map it, spare it — white matter is a road, Not a substance to traverse, but a structured zip code. Meyer's loop swings forward, temporal lobe beware, Arcuate for language, corticospinal laid bare — Subcortical stimulation tells you what the tractograph can't swear.
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