Directional Terms - human

Here is a handy reference on directional terms used for human anatomy.  I was nice enough to choose the pictures of people with clothes on.  You're welcome.

Here are some specific to the brain, because for humans our brain as we are standing is tilted compared to the way we hold up our heads, like so:

Source on Studyblue

So simply using superior/inferior and anterior/posterior doesn't quite work for how we normally think of orienting the brain, which is why we use dorsal/ventral and rostral/caudal.

Here is a memory aid for this.  I had a hard time keeping dorsal/ventral straight, so this is what helped me.

When I think of dorsal, a shark comes to mind with its iconic dorsal fin on its back or in this case top:

For ventral being the bottom or down, I had to think about stingrays.  They take water in on the top of their bodies and then shoot the water out the bottom over their gills.  So they vent the water out the bottom side of their body.  Hope that helps.

Left image: top/ dorsal side of stingray.  Right image: bottom / ventral side of stingray

There ya go, have fun in anatomy or whatever class brought you to find this blog!

Stay curious.