Andrea Verga was an Italian psychiatrist

Psychiatrist

A psychiatrist is a physician who specializes in the diagnosis and treatment of mental disorders. All psychiatrists are trained in diagnostic evaluation and in psychotherapy...

 and neurologist

Neurologist

A neurologist is a physician who specializes in neurology, and is trained to investigate, or diagnose and treat neurological disorders.Neurology is the medical specialty related to the human nervous system. The nervous system encompasses the brain, spinal cord, and peripheral nerves. A specialist...

 who was a native of Treviglio

Treviglio

Treviglio is a town and comune in the province of Bergamo, in Lombardy, northern Italy. It lies 20 km south of the capital city, in the lower territory called "Bassa" marked by the Adda and the Serio rivers....

. He was clinical professor of psychiatry

Psychiatry

Psychiatry is the medical specialty devoted to the study and treatment of mental disorders. These mental disorders include various affective, behavioural, cognitive and perceptual abnormalities...

 at the Ospedale Maggiore

Ospedale Maggiore

The Ospedale Maggiore, traditionally named Ca' Granda , is a building in the center of Milan, northern Italy, constructed to house one of the first community hospitals, the largest such undertaking of the fifteenth century...

 in Milan

Milan

Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...

, and in 1864 with Serafino Biffi (1822-1899) founded the Archivio Italiano per le malattie nervose e più particolarmente per le alienazioni mentali (Italian Archives for Nervous Diseases and Mental Illnesses).

Verga is remembered for his pioneer work done in the study of the criminally insane, as well as his early research of acrophobia

Acrophobia

Acrophobia is an extreme or irrational fear of heights. It belongs to a category of specific phobias, called space and motion discomfort that share both similar etiology and options for treatment.Most people experience a degree of natural fear when exposed to heights, especially if there is little...

, a condition he personally suffered from. In 1851 he described a posterior extension of the cavum septum pellucidum

Cavum septum pellucidum

Cavum septum pellucidum describes a septum pellucidum that has a separation between its two leaflets . This cavity contains cerebrospinal fluid that filters from the ventricles through the septal laminae....

. This extension is an anomaly found in a small percentage of human brain

Brain

The brain is the center of the nervous system in all vertebrate and most invertebrate animals—only a few primitive invertebrates such as sponges, jellyfish, sea squirts and starfishes do not have one. It is located in the head, usually close to primary sensory apparatus such as vision, hearing,...

s, and was later named the cavum vergae (Verga's ventricle), or the sixth ventricle

Ventricular system

The ventricular system is a set of structures containing cerebrospinal fluid in the brain. It is continuous with the central canal of the spinal cord.-Components:The system comprises four ventricles:* right and left lateral ventricles* third ventricle...

. This name is a misnomer because Verga's ventricle doesn't contain cerebrospinal fluid

Cerebrospinal fluid

Cerebrospinal fluid , Liquor cerebrospinalis, is a clear, colorless, bodily fluid, that occupies the subarachnoid space and the ventricular system around and inside the brain and spinal cord...

 nor is it lined by ependyma

Ependyma

Ependyma is the thin epithelial membrane lining the ventricular system of the brain and the spinal cord. Ependyma is one of the four types of neuroglia in the central nervous system. It is involved in the production of cerebrospinal fluid ....

.