Bilateral Right Cerebrum.Parietal Lobe.Postcentral Gyrus.Gray Matter.Brodmann area 5 corresponds to a higher-order somatosensory association region located in the superior parietal lobule, just posterior to the primary somatosensory cortex (Brodmann areas 3, 1, and 2). In the Talairach 1 mm Atlas, this gray matter territory participates in the integration of tactile, proprioceptive, and kinesthetic information, contributing to the perception of limb position, complex somatosensory discrimination, and the coordination of sensorimotor functions required for spatial orientation and guided movement. Neuronal populations in BA5 receive convergent input from primary and secondary somatosensory areas and project to premotor and other parietal regions, supporting the construction of internal body representations and the transformation of somatosensory signals into action-relevant formats. There is no direct link for “Brodmann area 5,” so a closely related structure is: Superior parietal lobule.
The bilateral right postcentral gyrus gray matter in Brodmann area 5, a key somatosensory association region in the superior parietal lobule, has been implicated in several genetic and GWAS-based findings, although most studies refer to broader parietal or postcentral regions rather than this exact Talairach-defined parcel. Large-scale brain MRI GWAS (e.g., ENIGMA, UK Biobank) have identified common variants in genes involved in neurodevelopment, synaptic function, and axon guidance (such as variants near MAPT, HMGA2, and microtubule or cell-adhesion–related loci) that associate with parietal cortical thickness, surface area, and overall somatosensory cortex morphology that encompass or overlap BA5. Genetic risk for neurodevelopmental and psychiatric disorders—including autism spectrum disorder, ADHD, schizophrenia, and major depression—has been linked to structural or functional alterations in superior parietal/postcentral regions, with polygenic risk scores for these conditions correlating with variation in parietal morphology or connectivity in imaging–genetics analyses. Furthermore, GWAS of cognitive performance, educational attainment, and general intelligence have shown that polygenic scores for these traits are associated with gray matter volume and thickness in parietal association cortices, including BA5, consistent with this region’s role in visuospatial integration and higher-order somatosensory processing. Pain sensitivity and somatosensory processing traits have also been tied to genetic variation in ion channels and neurotransmission-related genes whose downstream effects include altered activity or structure in postcentral and superior parietal areas, though these associations are typically reported at the network or lobe level rather than at the precise Talairach BA5 label.
Overview generated by GPT-4o (2026).
Region ID: 1096
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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