The bilateral Left Cerebrum.Frontal Lobe.Superior Frontal Gyrus.Gray Matter.Brodmann area 9, as defined in the Talairach 2 mm Atlas, corresponds to a dorsolateral prefrontal cortical region implicated in higher-order executive functions, including working memory, cognitive control, planning, and aspects of social cognition. Cytoarchitectonically, Brodmann area 9 is characterized by a granular frontal cortex with a well-developed layer IV and prominent pyramidal neurons in layers III and V, supporting extensive cortico-cortical and cortico-subcortical connectivity. Functionally, this region participates in the regulation of goal-directed behavior, error monitoring, and complex reasoning, integrating multimodal information from parietal, temporal, and limbic areas, and projecting to premotor and basal ganglia circuits for behavioral implementation. There is no direct Wikipedia article for “Brodmann area 9” itself; a related structure is the Dorsolateral prefrontal cortex.
The bilateral superior frontal gyrus (Brodmann area 9) has been implicated in multiple genetically influenced traits and disorders through imaging genetics and GWAS studies, particularly via measures of frontal cortical thickness, surface area, and gray matter volume. Variants in genes involved in synaptic function and neurodevelopment—such as those in the major histocompatibility complex (MHC) region, CACNA1C, DRD2, GRIN2A, and genes contributing to polygenic risk for schizophrenia and bipolar disorder—have been associated with structural and functional alterations in dorsolateral prefrontal cortex that encompass BA9. Large-scale neuroimaging GWAS (e.g., ENIGMA and UK Biobank) have identified common variants (including loci near HMGA2, MIR137, and multiple intergenic regions) associated with frontal lobe morphology, which in turn mediate risk for cognitive traits (executive function, working memory, intelligence), educational attainment, and personality dimensions such as conscientiousness and neuroticism. BA9 structural and functional characteristics have also been linked to polygenic risk scores for major depressive disorder, ADHD, and autism spectrum disorder, suggesting that this region is a convergence point for distributed genetic influences on higher-order cognition, emotion regulation, and psychiatric vulnerability, although specific gene–region associations remain largely polygenic and pleiotropic rather than confined to single loci.
Overview generated by GPT-4o (2026).
Region ID: 902
Hemisphere: bilateral
Atlas: Talairach labels 2mm
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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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