The bilateral Left Cerebrum.Occipital Lobe.Middle Temporal Gyrus.White Matter corresponds to subcortical fiber pathways underlying the middle temporal gyrus at the occipital–temporal junction of the left hemisphere, as defined in the Talairach 1 mm atlas. These white matter tracts include long association fibers (such as components of the inferior longitudinal fasciculus and possibly the inferior fronto‑occipital fasciculus) that connect occipital visual areas with temporal regions involved in object recognition, motion processing, and aspects of language and semantic processing. Functionally, this white matter region supports the integration and rapid transfer of visual information from occipital cortex to temporal association cortices, contributing to higher‑order visual perception and multimodal integration. There is no direct link for this exact white matter label; see the related cortical region: Middle temporal gyrus.
The bilateral left cerebrum occipital lobe/middle temporal gyrus white matter, as defined in the Talairach 1 mm atlas, overlaps functionally with posterior temporal–occipital association pathways that support visual processing, language, and higher-order semantic integration, and genetic associations with this region arise largely from imaging genetics and GWAS of white-matter microstructure and cortical connectivity. Large diffusion MRI GWAS (e.g., UK Biobank) have implicated loci in genes involved in axon guidance, myelination, and neurodevelopment (such as variants near or within CNTNAP2, NTRK3, LINGO1, and PLP1-related pathways) in fractional anisotropy and mean diffusivity measures in temporal and occipital association fibers, including segments of the inferior longitudinal fasciculus and inferior fronto-occipital fasciculus that traverse or border this territory. Polygenic risk for schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, major depressive disorder, and autism spectrum disorder has been associated with altered white-matter integrity and connectivity in temporal–occipital regions, with convergent evidence for risk loci in synaptic and calcium-channel genes (e.g., CACNA1C, GRIN2A, DLG2) influencing these microstructural phenotypes. GWAS of reading ability, dyslexia, and language-related traits have further linked variants in genes such as DCDC2 and KIAA0319 to structural and diffusion properties of posterior temporal white matter, consistent with the role of this region in visual–language integration. Although most studies report associations at the level of tracts or lobar regions rather than this specific Talairach parcel, converging genetic evidence supports a pattern in which neurodevelopmental, myelination, and synaptic genes shape the structure and connectivity of middle temporal/occipital white matter, thereby modulating risk and variation in psychiatric disorders, cognitive abilities (including language and visual processing), and general brain connectivity endophenotypes.
Overview generated by GPT-4o (2026).
Region ID: 562
Hemisphere: bilateral
Atlas: Talairach labels 1mm
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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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