thalamus /thal″əməs/ pl. thalami [Gk, thalamos, chamber] , adj., one of a pair of large oval nervous structures made of gray matter and forming most of the lateral walls of the third ventricle of the brain and part of the diencephalon. It relays sensory information, excluding smell, to the cerebral cortex. It is composed mainly of gray substance and translates impulses from appropriate receptors into crude sensations of pain, temperature, and touch. It also participates in associating sensory impulses with pleasant and unpleasant feelings, in the arousal mechanisms of the body, and in the mechanisms that produce complex reflex movements. Compare epithalamus, hypothalamus, subthalamus. −thalamic, adj.
