The bilateral Right Cerebrum.Temporal Lobe.Middle Temporal Gyrus.Gray Matter.Brodmann area 19 corresponds to portions of the middle temporal gyrus that fall within the cytoarchitectonic boundaries of Brodmann area 19, traditionally part of the extrastriate (association) visual cortex. Although Brodmann area 19 is classically described in the occipital lobe, its architectonic fields extend into adjacent temporal cortex, where they participate in higher-order visual processing, including integration of complex visual features, motion, and form with multimodal and semantic information. Neurons in this region receive convergent input from primary and secondary visual areas and project to distributed temporal and parietal association networks, supporting functions such as visual object recognition, perception of motion and spatial relationships, and linkage of visual stimuli to stored knowledge. There is no direct link for this specific Talairach-defined temporal BA19 region; a related area is Brodmann area 19.
The bilateral right middle temporal gyrus gray matter in Brodmann area 19, a higher-order visual association region in the temporal lobe, has been implicated in multiple genetic and GWAS-based associations involving both brain structure and neuropsychiatric traits. Imaging genetics studies using MRI and voxel-based morphometry have reported heritable variation in cortical thickness and surface area in adjacent superior and middle temporal regions, with implicated loci including variants near genes involved in neurodevelopment and synaptic function (for example, common variants near MIR137, GRIN2B, and genes in the glutamatergic and GABAergic pathways) that show pleiotropic effects on temporal cortex morphology and cognition. Large brain-structure GWAS consortia (such as ENIGMA and UK Biobank–based analyses) have identified multiple genome-wide significant loci influencing temporal lobe cortical thickness and surface area that map to neurodevelopmental and axon-guidance genes (e.g., FGFR3, TBR1/TBR1-regulated networks, and MAPT-region haplotypes), though results are generally reported at the level of broader temporal regions rather than Talairach-defined BA19 specifically. Functionally, BA19 in the middle temporal gyrus participates in higher-order visual processing, semantic integration, and social cognition, and genetic studies of autism spectrum disorder, schizophrenia, and major depressive disorder have consistently implicated polygenic risk in networks that include this region, with carriers of higher polygenic risk often showing altered gray matter volume, cortical thickness, or functional activation in the middle/superior temporal cortex. GWAS of educational attainment, reading ability, and language-related traits have also found that polygenic scores for cognitive performance correlate with structural variation in temporal association cortices, including the middle temporal gyrus, suggesting shared genetic influences on this region’s morphology and higher cognitive function. While no single gene has been uniquely and specifically tied to bilateral right BA19 in the Talairach 1 mm atlas, convergent imaging–genetics and GWAS evidence indicates that common polygenic variation affecting neurodevelopment, synaptic plasticity, and myelination contributes to interindividual differences in the structure and function of this visual-association and language-relevant temporal area, with downstream links to neurodevelopmental disorders, psychosis, mood disorders, and cognitive traits.
Overview generated by GPT-4o (2026).
Region ID: 819
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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