The bilateral Right Cerebrum.Occipital Lobe.Middle Occipital Gyrus.Gray Matter.Brodmann area 19 corresponds to a portion of the associative visual cortex located in the lateral occipital region, involved in higher-order processing and integration of visual information beyond primary visual reception. Brodmann area 19 receives input from primary (BA17) and secondary (BA18) visual areas and contributes to complex functions such as object recognition, visual pattern analysis, and integration of motion and form, supporting the construction of coherent visual percepts. Cytoarchitectonically, BA19 is characterized by a distinct laminar organization typical of heteromodal association cortex, with dense intracortical connections and projections to temporal and parietal visual association areas, forming part of the extended visual processing network. There is no direct link for this exact Talairach label; a closely related structure is Brodmann area 19.
The bilateral right middle occipital gyrus (BA19) in the occipital lobe, as defined in the Talairach 1 mm atlas, corresponds largely to higher-order visual association cortex, and genetic associations identified through imaging-genetics and GWAS implicate this region in multiple neuropsychiatric and cognitive phenotypes rather than a single specific gene or variant. Common variants in pathways related to synaptic function, neurodevelopment, and myelination (for example, genes such as BDNF, NRG1/ERBB signaling components, and glutamatergic or GABAergic genes in large consortia studies) have been linked to differences in occipital gray-matter volume, cortical thickness, or surface area, including in BA19, in population-based imaging GWAS (e.g., ENIGMA and UK Biobank). Structural and functional alterations of BA19 are repeatedly observed in schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, major depressive disorder, autism spectrum disorder, and ADHD, where polygenic risk scores for these disorders correlate with occipital cortex measures, suggesting distributed genetic influences rather than region-specific loci. GWAS of visual processing traits, reading and dyslexia, and educational attainment have reported associations between polygenic scores and BA19 activation or morphology, consistent with the region’s role in visual word form and higher-order visual integration. Furthermore, neurodegenerative disease genetics (e.g., APOE and other Alzheimer’s disease–related variants) have been linked to patterns of cortical thinning that include BA19, and migraine and visual aura–related genetic risk has been associated with altered occipital cortex excitability and structure, though not uniquely confined to this gyrus. Overall, current evidence indicates that BA19 in the right middle occipital gyrus is influenced by highly polygenic, pleiotropic variation that contributes to visual cognition, psychiatric liability, and brain structural phenotypes, with no single robust, region-specific genetic variant yet established.
Overview generated by GPT-4o (2026).
Region ID: 316
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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