Nervous and endocrine control

Control and coordination in the frog is highly evolved and uses both the neural system and the endocrine glands.

Hormones secreted by the endocrine glands coordinate the organs chemically. The frog's prominent endocrine glands are the pituitary, thyroid, parathyroid, thymus and pineal body, together with the pancreatic islets, the adrenals and the gonads.

The nervous system has three parts: the central nervous system (brain and spinal cord), the peripheral nervous system (cranial and spinal nerves) and the autonomic nervous system (sympathetic and parasympathetic).

Ten pairs of cranial nerves arise from the brain.

The brain lies inside a bony brain box, the cranium. It has three regions: fore-brain, mid-brain and hind-brain.

The fore-brain has the olfactory lobes, a pair of cerebral hemispheres and the unpaired diencephalon. The mid-brain is marked by a pair of optic lobes. The hind-brain has the cerebellum and the medulla oblongata.

The medulla oblongata leaves the cranium through the foramen magnum and continues as the spinal cord, which is enclosed in the vertebral column.