Floor View Skull Hypophyseal Fossa

The hypophysial fossa or pituitary fossa seat of the saddle sits in the middle of the sella turcica.
Floor view skull hypophyseal fossa. The dorsum sellae back of the saddle forms the posterior wall of the sella turcica. It is bound anteriorly by the tuberculum sellae in front of which lies the sulcus chiasmatica and posteriorly by the dorsum sellae a ridge of bone at either end of which lies the posterior clinoid processes. The greater wings of the sphenoid bone extend laterally to either side away from the sella turcica where they form the anterior floor of the middle cranial fossa. Openings through the skull in the floor of the middle fossa include the optic canal and superior orbital fissure which open into the posterior orbit the foramen rotundum foramen ovale and foramen spinosum and the exit.
It has numerous foramina and harbours the pituitary gland. It is a large square of bone pointing upwards and forwards. The greater wings of the sphenoid bone extend laterally to either side away from the sella turcica where they form the anterior floor of the middle cranial fossa. The pituitary fossa hypophyseal fossa is an indentation in the roof of the body of the sphenoid bone in the middle cranial fossa.
It is a depression in the body of the sphenoid which holds the pituitary gland. The right and left sides are separated at the midline by the sella turcica which surrounds the shallow hypophyseal fossa. The rounded depression in the floor of the sella turcica is the hypophyseal pituitary fossa which houses the pea sized pituitary hypophyseal gland.