The bilateral Inferior Temporal Gyrus, anterior division, as defined in the Harvard-Oxford cortical structural atlas (maxprob thr25, 1 mm), corresponds to the rostral portion of the inferior temporal gyrus located on the ventrolateral surface of the temporal lobe, extending anteriorly toward the temporal pole. This region occupies the inferior aspect of the temporal neocortex, lying below the middle temporal gyrus and anterior to more posterior portions of the ventral visual stream. Functionally, the anterior inferior temporal cortex is implicated in high-level visual processing, including complex object recognition and categorization, and is thought to contribute to semantic processing and visual memory by integrating multimodal information from occipitotemporal and limbic structures. There is no direct Wikipedia article for the “Inferior Temporal Gyrus, anterior division” as defined in this atlas; a related structure is the Inferior temporal gyrus.
The bilateral inferior temporal gyrus, anterior division (ITG) has been implicated in several genetic and GWAS-based associations through its roles in high-level visual processing, semantic memory, and object recognition, although relatively few studies target this exact parcellation from the Harvard–Oxford atlas. Imaging genetics and large-scale consortia (e.g., ENIGMA, UK Biobank) have reported that common variants in genes involved in synaptic function, neurodevelopment, and axonal guidance (such as BDNF, NRG1, and various glutamatergic and GABAergic pathway genes) are associated with cortical thickness, surface area, and volume measures in inferior temporal regions, including the ITG. Polygenic risk scores for schizophrenia, major depressive disorder, autism spectrum disorder, and Alzheimer’s disease show correlations with structural or functional alterations in inferior temporal cortices, where genetic risk loci (e.g., in APOE, CLU, and other Alzheimer’s-related genes) have been linked to atrophy patterns and amyloid/tau-related changes that prominently involve temporal association areas. GWAS of cognitive traits and educational attainment have also identified loci whose effects on general intelligence and memory performance are partially mediated by variability in temporal association cortex morphology, including anterior inferior temporal areas. However, most findings remain regionally coarse, and genetic associations are usually reported for broader temporal lobe or inferior temporal cortex rather than specifically and exclusively for the bilateral anterior ITG parcel.
Overview generated by GPT-4o (2026).
Region ID: 14
Hemisphere: bilateral
Atlas: HarvardOxford cort maxprob thr25 1mm
Full Quality Version: Download MP4
Full Quality Version: Download MP4
Wali Sidiqyar*, Gaurav Rudravaram*, Elyssa M. McMaster, Trent M. Schwartz, Adam M. Saunders, Kurt G. Schilling, Bennett A. Landman "Introducing SPINS: A Shared Public Visualization Library of Neuroanatomical Structures." Medical Imaging with Deep Learning- short paper
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