cerebral hemisphere

The cerebrum, or the largest part of the vertebrate brain, is made up of two cerebral hemispheres. The deep groove known as the longitudinal fissure divides the cerebrum into the left and right hemispheres, but the hemispheres remain united by the corpus callosum, a large bundle of nerve fibers in the middle of the brain whose primary function is to integrate sensory and motor signals between the hemispheres. In eutherian (placental) mammals, other bundles of nerve fibers like the corpus callosum exist, including the anterior commissure, the posterior commissure, and the fornix, but compared with the corpus callosum, they are much smaller in size.

Broadly, the hemispheres are made up of two types of tissues. The thin outer layer of the cerebral hemispheres is made up of gray matter, composed of neuronal cell bodies, dendrites, and synapses; this outer layer constitutes the cerebral cortex (cortex is Latin for "bark of a tree"). Below that is the larger inner layer of white matter, composed of axons and myelin.