For our purposes, this gland is pretty important because
these pineal cells can become cancerous.
They can start to multiply.
And if they multiply, they're going to take up more and more space.
And you can see that even though this is not
part of the brain it's, it's a actual gland that's got
stuck inside of the, inside of the cranium, that, if this expands,
we're going to have brain problems because it's going to put pressure.
It puts pressure primarily on the mid brain.
And one of the things that it does is that it closes this cerebral aqueduct.
So can you see that if this were to increase in
size, it would press down and close off the cerebral aqueduct.
That's a problem and it causes a condition called hydrocephalus.
So the important point here is just to understand that the cerebral cortex, the
telencephalon, has expanded so much, that it's covering the underlying diencephalon.
It's covering the underlying mid brain, and it's covering
most of the, of the hind brain as well.