The middle rectal plexus is a nerve

plexus In neuroanatomy, a plexus (from the Latin term for "braid") is a branching network of vessels or nerves. The vessels may be blood vessels (veins, capillaries) or lymphatic vessels. The nerves are typically axons outside the central nervous sy ...

which supplies the middle part of the

rectum The rectum is the final straight portion of the large intestine in humans and some other mammals, and the gut in others. The adult human rectum is about long, and begins at the rectosigmoid junction (the end of the sigmoid colon) at the l ...

. It is a branch of the

inferior hypogastric plexus The inferior hypogastric plexus (pelvic plexus in some texts) is a network () of nerves that supplies the organs of the pelvic cavity. The inferior hypogastric plexus gives rise to the prostatic plexus in males and the uterovaginal plexus in female ...

. The middle rectal plexus used to be referred to by anatomists as Copeland's web, due to its identification by biologist Charles Copeland and the design of his anatomical drawings in the early 20th century.

References

Sympathetic nervous system {{neuroanatomy-stub