The bilateral anterior corona radiata (L) is a white matter tract located in the frontal portion of the corona radiata, deep to the frontal cortex and superior to the internal capsule. It contains ascending and descending projection fibers, including corticocortical and corticofugal pathways, that interconnect prefrontal cortical regions with subcortical structures such as the thalamus and brainstem. Functionally, this tract contributes to higher-order cognitive processes, executive function, attention, and aspects of motor planning by facilitating communication between frontal lobe association areas and subcortical nuclei. In the JHU ICBM 1 mm Atlas, the anterior corona radiata is delineated based on diffusion tensor imaging-derived probabilistic tractography, providing a standardized reference for neuroimaging and connectomic studies. There is no direct Wikipedia article specifically for the anterior corona radiata; a related structure encompassing this region is the Corona radiata.
The bilateral anterior corona radiata (ACR-L in the JHU ICBM 1 mm atlas) is a major frontal white-matter tract whose microstructural variability (e.g., fractional anisotropy and mean diffusivity) has been repeatedly linked to common genetic variation in large neuroimaging GWAS. Heritability studies and ENIGMA-based analyses indicate substantial genetic influence on anterior corona radiata integrity, with associations reported for loci near or within genes involved in axon guidance, myelination, and neurodevelopment, including variants in and around NRG1, CNTN4, and genes regulating oligodendrocyte function. GWAS incorporating diffusion MRI have linked anterior corona radiata metrics to polygenic risk for schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and major depressive disorder, where risk alleles in synaptic and immune-related genes (e.g., complement pathway and calcium-channel genes) partially overlap with those influencing frontal white-matter organization. In psychiatric genomics, reduced integrity in the anterior corona radiata has been associated with schizophrenia, ADHD, and mood disorders as an intermediate phenotype, and several studies show that genetic risk scores for these conditions correlate with microstructural changes in this tract. Additionally, imaging-genetic work has related variants in genes affecting neuroinflammation (e.g., HLA region) and lipid metabolism (e.g., APOE in older adults) to anterior corona radiata structure and age-related decline, implicating this region as a genetically modulated substrate for higher-order cognitive and emotional processes, though specific locus–tract mappings remain provisional and under active investigation.
Overview generated by GPT-4o (2026).
Region ID: 24
Hemisphere: bilateral
Atlas: JHU ICBM labels 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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