Angular (Left)

Overview

The left Angular gyrus (Angular_L in the AAL2 atlas) is a multimodal association region located in the posterior part of the inferior parietal lobule, surrounding the termination of the superior temporal sulcus and bordering the supramarginal gyrus and posterior superior temporal cortex. It integrates visual, auditory, and somatosensory information and is critically involved in language-related processes such as reading, writing, semantic processing, and number cognition, as well as in higher-order functions including theory of mind, attention reorientation, and aspects of episodic memory retrieval. Lesions in the left Angular gyrus have been associated with Gerstmann syndrome (acalculia, agraphia, finger agnosia, left–right disorientation) and certain forms of aphasia, reflecting its central role in symbolic processing and parietal–temporal integration. Angular gyrus

The left angular gyrus (AAL2 Angular_L) has been implicated in several genetic and genome-wide association studies, primarily via imaging-genetics approaches that relate common variants to cortical structure, connectivity, or activation. Variants in APOE (notably ε4) and CLU have been associated with altered cortical thickness, metabolism, or connectivity in the left angular gyrus in Alzheimer’s disease and preclinical at-risk populations, consistent with this region’s role in default mode network alterations. Polygenic risk scores for schizophrenia, major depressive disorder, and autism spectrum disorder have each been linked to structural or functional differences in temporoparietal association cortex, including the left angular gyrus, in large consortia datasets (e.g., ENIGMA), suggesting a shared genetic contribution to higher-order association areas implicated in language, social cognition, and internal mentation. GWAS of educational attainment, general cognitive ability, and reading-related traits (e.g., variants near genes such as KIAA0319 and DCDC2, although not specific to AAL-defined ROIs) have been associated with structural and functional alterations in left temporoparietal regions encompassing the angular gyrus, consistent with its role in semantic processing and number/word manipulation. Additionally, imaging-GWAS work has reported associations between common variants in genes involved in synaptic plasticity (e.g., BDNF Val66Met) and left angular gyrus activation during memory or language tasks, though these effects are generally small and often not specific to this single region. Overall, current genetic associations for the left angular gyrus arise mainly from distributed polygenic influences on temporoparietal association cortex rather than region-specific single-gene effects.

Overview generated by GPT-4o (2026).

Region ID: 6221
Hemisphere: left
Atlas: AAL2

Angular (Left) – Black Background (Full Brain)

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Angular (Left) – White Background (Full Brain)

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Angular (Left) – Black Background (Hemisphere)

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Angular (Left) – White Background (Hemisphere)

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Triplanar View – T1 Background

Triplanar View – Ghost Brain