The bilateral Right Cerebrum.Occipital Lobe.Precuneus.Gray Matter.Brodmann area 23 corresponds to gray matter within the posterior medial cortex, lying at the junction of the occipital lobe and the precuneus region, and forming part of the caudal posterior cingulate cortex (BA23). This area is a key node of the default mode network and is implicated in internally directed cognition, episodic memory retrieval, visuospatial imagery, and self-referential processing. Cytoarchitectonically, BA23 is characterized by a granular cortical structure typical of association cortex, with extensive reciprocal connections to the hippocampal formation, retrosplenial cortex, and higher-order visual areas, supporting integration of visual information with memory and navigation-related functions. There is no direct Wikipedia article for this specific Talairach-defined region; a closely related structure is the Posterior cingulate cortex.
The bilateral right cerebrum occipital lobe precuneus gray matter Brodmann area 23, though labeled as occipital in the Talairach 2 mm atlas, functionally overlaps posterior cingulate/precuneus territory within the default mode network and has been implicated by numerous imaging genetics and GWAS-based neuroimaging studies. Common variants in genes related to synaptic plasticity, neurodevelopment, and immune function—such as APOE (especially ε4), CLU, CR1, and BIN1—have been associated with cortical thinning, reduced gray matter volume, and hypometabolism in posterior cingulate/precuneus regions in Alzheimer’s disease and mild cognitive impairment. Large-scale GWAS of brain structure (e.g., ENIGMA, UK Biobank) have identified polygenic influences on cortical thickness and surface area in medial parietal/posterior cingulate regions, with loci near genes involved in axon guidance (e.g., ROBO1/2), glutamatergic signaling, and neurodevelopment (e.g., PAX6, TBR1) contributing to inter-individual variation. Imaging genetics work also links BA23/precuneus activity and structure to risk variants for major depressive disorder (e.g., in SLC6A4, BDNF Val66Met), schizophrenia (e.g., ZNF804A, CACNA1C), and autism spectrum traits, often via altered default mode network connectivity and self-referential processing. Additionally, polygenic scores for cognitive ability and educational attainment show associations with precuneus/posterior cingulate morphology and functional connectivity, suggesting that widespread, pleiotropic genetic influences on cognition, neuropsychiatric risk, and neurodegeneration converge on this hub region, even though few findings are specific to “BA23” as defined by the Talairach labels.
Overview generated by GPT-4o (2026).
Region ID: 830
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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