Cingulate Post (Left)

Overview

The left Cingulate Post (Left) region in the AAL2 atlas corresponds to the posterior part of the left cingulate gyrus, a medial cortical structure forming part of the limbic system and involved in integration of emotional, cognitive, and visceromotor information. Functionally, the posterior cingulate cortex participates in self-referential processing, memory retrieval, visuospatial orientation, and is a key hub of the default mode network, showing high metabolic activity at rest and deactivation during externally focused tasks. It maintains dense reciprocal connections with the medial parietal cortex, hippocampal formation, and prefrontal areas, supporting its role in episodic memory and internally directed attention. There is no direct Wikipedia article for “left Cingulate Post”; a closely related structure is the Posterior cingulate cortex.

The left posterior cingulate cortex (PCC), corresponding to the Left Cingulate Post region in the AAL2 atlas, has been repeatedly implicated in genetic imaging and GWAS studies linking structural and functional variation in this area to neuropsychiatric and cognitive traits. Twin and SNP-based heritability work shows moderate to high heritability of PCC volume, cortical thickness, and connectivity, with polygenic influences overlapping those for general cognitive ability, default mode network function, and educational attainment. Large-scale imaging–genetics consortia (e.g., ENIGMA, UK Biobank) have identified associations between common variants in genes related to synaptic function, neurodevelopment, and myelination and PCC morphology or connectivity, including loci near or within genes such as APOE (especially ε4), CLU, and other Alzheimer’s disease risk genes that contribute to PCC hypometabolism and atrophy. GWAS and candidate-gene studies further link PCC structure and activity to major depressive disorder, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, autism spectrum disorder, and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder through polygenic risk scores and disorder-associated loci that affect default mode network regulation. Additional findings connect PCC variation to traits such as rumination, self-referential processing, pain sensitivity, and altered consciousness, suggesting that genetic influences on this region contribute broadly to vulnerability for mood, psychotic, and neurodegenerative disorders, as well as individual differences in cognition and affect.

Overview generated by GPT-4o (2026).

Region ID: 4021
Hemisphere: left
Atlas: AAL2

Cingulate Post (Left) – Black Background (Full Brain)

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Cingulate Post (Left) – White Background (Full Brain)

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Cingulate Post (Left) – Black Background (Hemisphere)

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Cingulate Post (Left) – White Background (Hemisphere)

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Triplanar View – T1 Background

Triplanar View – Ghost Brain