The bilateral GM Secondary somatosensory cortex Parietal operculum OP4 L, as defined in the Juelich maxprob thr25 1mm Atlas, corresponds to a cytoarchitectonically characterized subregion of the parietal operculum that forms part of the secondary somatosensory cortex (SII). This area is located in the lateral wall of the Sylvian fissure within the parietal operculum and is involved in higher-order somatosensory processing, including integration of tactile, nociceptive, and proprioceptive information, as well as aspects of sensorimotor integration and potentially tactile object recognition. OP4 receives convergent input from primary somatosensory cortex and other sensory areas and projects to multimodal association regions, supporting complex processing of body-related sensory signals. There is no direct Wikipedia article for OP4; a related structure is the Parietal operculum.
Genetic associations specific to the bilateral GM Secondary somatosensory cortex Parietal operculum OP4 L (as defined in the Juelich maxprob thr25 1 mm atlas) are not well characterized at the fine-grained parcel level, but this region falls within a broader somatosensory and parietal opercular network for which several genetic links have been reported. Genome-wide association studies of cortical thickness and surface area have identified common variants influencing structural features in the parietal and somatosensory cortices, including loci near genes such as PAX6, TBR1, and other neurodevelopmental regulators, though these are typically reported at lobar or regional scales rather than individual cytoarchitectonic fields like OP4. Functional connectivity and imaging–genetics studies implicating the parietal operculum in pain processing, sensorimotor integration, and tactile perception have noted overlaps with risk variants for chronic pain conditions, migraine, and somatic symptom disorders, with candidate involvement of genes related to glutamatergic signaling (e.g., GRIN family) and neuroinflammation, but these associations remain indirect and not parcel-specific. More robust genetic links involve disorders whose pathophysiology engages the secondary somatosensory cortex, including autism spectrum disorder, schizophrenia, and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, where large GWAS have identified numerous risk loci (for example in CACNA1C, CNTNAP2, and synaptic scaffolding genes) and imaging studies often report altered activation or structure in parietal opercular regions; however, the connection to OP4 L is at the level of network involvement rather than a direct genotype–parcel mapping. Overall, current evidence suggests that genetic influences on neurodevelopment, synaptic signaling, and pain/sensory processing contribute to variation in and dysfunction of the parietal operculum and adjacent secondary somatosensory areas, but no GWAS has yet provided a specific, well-validated catalog of variants uniquely associated with OP4 L in the Juelich atlas.
Overview generated by GPT-4o (2026).
Region ID: 65
Hemisphere: bilateral
Atlas: Juelich 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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