Used in medical or biology contexts to describe the front of a human's body.

Human Anatomy

Helps clarify body orientation, different from 'dorsal' which refers to the back.

Orientation Clarity

Less commonly used for humans. 'Front' is more common in everyday language.

Not for Humans

Describes the underside in various species, so the exact position may vary.

Plants and Animals

Ventral describes the part of the plant facing away from the light source.

Botanical Use

The term becomes relevant in scientific and biological studies, not everyday speech.

Context Relevance

 told you're playing a computer they're just choosing randomly so what you see here is a subtraction of areas which there's more brain activity when you're playing people compared to playing the computer you see activity in some regions we've seen today medial prefrontal cortex dorsal medial however up here ventral medial prefrontal cortex

Neuroscience, game...

 see the ventral and dorsal surfaces so the ones at the bottom of the undersides of the platypus and they're glowing blue and green amazing dark extraordinary totally amazing look take a look at this other clip here because here is a picture of a platypus and this one's foraging when it's down underneath the

This Platypus Can Glow...

 known as the ventral striatum. Its activation makes hanging out with others enjoyable and motivates you to spend more time with them. Neuroimaging studies show that this region is highly reactive during your teenage years, which may explain why adolescents seem to place a higher value

How friendship affects...

 We're only going to talk about three of them. So the first one is called the ventral stream. It's on this side of the brain. And this is the part of the brain that will recognize what something is. It's the "what" detector. Look at a hand. Look at a remote control. Chair. Book.

3 ways the brain creates...

 basically at least two systems here and they both very ancient one is the reward system and that's fed by the chemical dopamine and it starts in the ventral tegmental area goes to nucleus accumbens all the way up to prefrontal cortex orbital frontal cortex where decisions

The surprising science...

 chemical similarity to our own endorphins this allows them to bind to the same opioid receptors and stop pain signals but that's not all they do deep inside Susan's brain is a region called the ventral tegmental area or VTA for short the VTA is full of neurons

This Is What Happens to...

 and study this madness. Our first study of people who were happily in love has been widely publicized, so I'm only going to say very little about it. We found activity in a tiny, little factory near the base of the brain called the ventral tegmental area.

The brain in love PIPE...

 that is especially attuned to processing objects. In addition, attractive faces activate parts of our reward and pleasure centers in the front and deep in the brain, and these include areas that have complicated names, like the ventral striatum,

How your brain decides...

 and see where does happiness arise from in evolution. We have basically at least two systems here, and they both are very ancient. One is the reward system, and that's fed by the chemical dopamine. And it starts in the ventral tegmental area.

Nancy Etcoff: Happiness...

 That's me. And that's my brain in love. There was activity in that little orange dot, the ventral tegmental area, that kind of loop of red is the anterior cingulate and that golden set of horns is the caudates.