Rectus (Left)

Overview

The left Rectus gyrus (often corresponding to the medial orbitofrontal cortex) is a cortical region located on the ventromedial surface of the frontal lobe, adjacent to the gyrus rectus and orbital gyri, and superior to the olfactory sulcus. In the AAL2 parcellation, it is implicated in integrating reward-related information, emotional evaluation, and autonomic regulation, and is frequently associated with decision-making, value representation, and aspects of social cognition. Functionally, this region forms part of limbic and paralimbic networks, interacting with structures such as the amygdala, hypothalamus, and anterior cingulate cortex, and is involved in mood regulation and affective processing. There is no direct Wikipedia article for the “Rectus (Left)” region as defined in AAL2; it corresponds most closely to the Medial orbitofrontal cortex.

The left rectus gyrus (often grouped with medial orbitofrontal/ventromedial prefrontal cortex in imaging-genetics work rather than labeled explicitly as “left Rectus” in AAL2) shows heritable variation in cortical thickness and volume, with SNP-based heritability estimates from large ENIGMA and UK Biobank GWAS typically in the 15–30% range; genome-wide–significant loci for medial orbitofrontal/rectus measures frequently map to genes involved in neurodevelopment, synaptic function, and axon guidance (for example, variants near or within WNT and semaphorin pathway genes, and neurodevelopmental loci such as those in contactin and cadherin families), although specific rectus-only signals are rarely isolated. Polygenic risk for major depressive disorder, bipolar disorder, and schizophrenia has been associated with structural and functional differences in medial orbitofrontal/rectus regions, and case–control imaging-genetics studies link reduced volume or altered activation in this territory to mood disorders, obsessive–compulsive disorder, and substance use traits. GWAS of complex traits such as neuroticism, risk-taking, and cognitive performance also report associations with medial prefrontal/rectus morphology or connectivity, supporting a genetic overlap between this region and personality, affective regulation, and reward-related behaviors, but current evidence remains largely regionally coarse-grained and does not yet provide a detailed, rectus-specific catalog of risk genes.

Overview generated by GPT-4o (2026).

Region ID: 2701
Hemisphere: left
Atlas: AAL2

Rectus (Left) – Black Background (Full Brain)

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Rectus (Left) – White Background (Full Brain)

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Rectus (Left) – Black Background (Hemisphere)

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Rectus (Left) – White Background (Hemisphere)

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Triplanar View – T1 Background

Triplanar View – Ghost Brain