 Habenula

In neuroanatomy, habenula (diminutive of Latin "habena" meaning rein) originally denoted the stalk of the pineal gland (pineal habenula; pedunculus of pineal body), but gradually came to refer to a neighboring group of nerve cells with which the pineal gland was believed to be associated, the habenular nucleus.The habenular nucleus is a set of well-conserved structures in all vertebrate animals.