Bilateral Right Cerebrum.Temporal Lobe.Sub-Gyral.Gray Matter.Brodmann area 37 refers to gray matter located in the deep (subgyral) portions of the right temporal lobe, corresponding to Brodmann area 37, which encompasses parts of the fusiform and inferior temporal gyri. This region is implicated in high-level visual processing, particularly object and face recognition, as well as in aspects of language, including semantic processing and word-form recognition. Functionally, BA37 participates in ventral visual stream pathways that transform complex visual inputs into meaningful representations, and it interfaces with occipital, temporal, and frontal association areas to support multimodal integration and memory-related processes. There is no direct link for this exact Talairach-defined region; a closely related structure is Brodmann area 37.
The bilateral right cerebrum temporal lobe sub-gyral gray matter corresponding to Brodmann area 37 (BA37), encompassing the fusiform and adjacent inferior temporal regions, has been repeatedly implicated in genetic studies of higher-order visual and language functions, particularly face and word recognition. GWAS and imaging-genetics studies have linked common variants in genes such as KIAA0319, DCDC2, and ROBO1—classically associated with developmental dyslexia—to structural and functional differences in left- and right-hemisphere BA37, including reduced gray matter volume and altered activation during reading or orthographic processing. Variants in CNTNAP2, FOXP2, and related language-network genes have been associated with altered temporal lobe activation, including BA37, in tasks involving speech and semantic processing, and with neurodevelopmental conditions such as specific language impairment and autism spectrum disorder, where atypical fusiform/BA37 responses to faces and social stimuli are frequently observed. Schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and major depression GWAS have identified polygenic risk scores that correlate with temporal lobe and fusiform cortical thickness or surface area, implicating BA37 in the structural endophenotypes of these disorders, while Alzheimer’s disease and frontotemporal dementia genetics (e.g., APOE ε4, MAPT, GRN) have been associated with accelerated atrophy patterns extending into BA37 in longitudinal imaging studies. Additional GWAS of cortical morphology have reported heritable variation in temporal-occipital regions overlapping BA37, with loci related to neurodevelopmental and synaptic genes (e.g., MIR137, MEF2C) influencing fusiform/BA37 volume or surface area, thereby positioning this region as a key genetically modulated hub for visual word-form processing, face perception, and language-related temporal networks, with relevance to dyslexia, autism, schizophrenia, and neurodegenerative disorders.
Overview generated by GPT-4o (2026).
Region ID: 333
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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