The bilateral Right Cerebrum, Precuneus, is a medial parietal lobe region located on the posteromedial surface of the cerebral hemisphere between the marginal branch of the cingulate sulcus and the parieto-occipital sulcus, extending in the Talairach 1 mm atlas across portions of the superior parietal lobule. It is supplied primarily by branches of the posterior cerebral and, variably, the anterior cerebral arteries, and is composed of association cortex integrating visuo-spatial, somatosensory, and higher-order cognitive information. Functionally, the precuneus is implicated in visuospatial imagery, episodic memory retrieval, self-referential processing, aspects of consciousness, and is a key hub of the default mode network, showing high resting metabolic activity and extensive connectivity with parietal, frontal, and limbic regions. Precuneus
The bilateral right precuneus, as defined in the Talairach 1 mm atlas, has been implicated in multiple genetic and genome-wide association studies linking its structure and function to diverse neuropsychiatric and cognitive traits. GWAS of cortical thickness and surface area (e.g., ENIGMA and UK Biobank) have identified associations between precuneus morphology and common variants in genes involved in neurodevelopment, synaptic signaling, and myelination, including loci near genes such as BDNF, MAPT, and various calcium-channel and glutamatergic pathway genes, though findings are often shared with other parietal regions rather than specific to the right precuneus alone. Structural and functional alterations of the precuneus show heritability and have been genetically correlated with disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease, schizophrenia, major depressive disorder, and autism spectrum disorder, with risk loci in APOE and other Alzheimer’s genes associated with precuneus atrophy and hypometabolism, and schizophrenia- and depression-related polygenic risk scores predicting altered precuneus connectivity within the default mode network. GWAS of cognitive traits and educational attainment have also linked polygenic influences on intelligence and memory to variation in precuneus volume and activation, while imaging-genetics studies indicate that genetic variation in dopaminergic, serotonergic, and glutamatergic genes modulates precuneus activity during self-referential processing, episodic memory, and visuospatial tasks.
Overview generated by GPT-4o (2026).
Region ID: 976
Hemisphere: bilateral
Atlas: Talairach 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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