The bilateral Left Cerebrum.Parietal Lobe.Precuneus corresponds to a medial parietal cortical region located on the medial surface of the parietal lobe, bordering the posterior cingulate cortex and extending toward the parieto-occipital sulcus. It is cytoarchitectonically heterogeneous and participates in a wide array of higher-order functions, including visuospatial imagery, self-referential processing, episodic memory retrieval, aspects of consciousness, and integration of multimodal sensory information. Functionally, the precuneus is a key hub of the default mode network, showing strong resting-state activity and connectivity with frontal, temporal, and limbic areas, and is often implicated in tasks involving perspective taking, mental imagery, and internal mentation.
The bilateral precuneus in the left parietal lobe—a key hub for visuospatial integration, self-referential processing, and default mode network activity—has been repeatedly implicated in genetic studies that link brain structure and function to neuropsychiatric and cognitive traits. GWAS of cortical thickness, surface area, and regional volume have identified multiple common variants (notably in loci such as 17q21.31, 3p24, and 6p21) that influence precuneus morphology, many overlapping with risk variants for schizophrenia, major depressive disorder, and Alzheimer’s disease, suggesting shared genetic architecture between precuneus structure and disease susceptibility. Polygenic risk scores for schizophrenia, autism spectrum disorder, and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder have been associated with altered precuneus connectivity and default mode network patterns, while imaging genetics studies show that APOE ε4 and other Alzheimer’s-related variants are linked to precuneus hypometabolism, atrophy, and amyloid burden. Large-scale consortia such as ENIGMA and UK Biobank have also reported associations between precuneus measures and genes related to synaptic function, myelination, and immune signaling, and GWAS of cognitive performance, intelligence, and educational attainment indicate that genetic influences on these traits partly act through variation in parietal and precuneus anatomy and functional connectivity.
Overview generated by GPT-4o (2026).
Region ID: 861
Hemisphere: bilateral
Atlas: Talairach labels 2mm
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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