The bilateral Right Cerebrum.Temporal Lobe.Superior Temporal Gyrus.Gray Matter.Brodmann area 39 corresponds primarily to the angular gyrus region situated at the junction of the temporal, parietal, and occipital lobes, although BA39 is more classically associated with the inferior parietal lobule. Functionally, this area is involved in multimodal association processes, integrating auditory, visual, and somatosensory information, and plays key roles in language-related functions such as semantic processing, reading, and comprehension, as well as number processing and aspects of spatial cognition and attention. Activity in BA39 has also been linked to theory of mind, memory retrieval, and higher-order conceptual integration, reflecting its role as a heteromodal association cortex. There is no direct Wikipedia article for “Right Cerebrum.Temporal Lobe.Superior Temporal Gyrus.Gray Matter.Brodmann area 39,” but it is closely related to the Angular gyrus.
The bilateral right superior temporal gyrus gray matter in Brodmann area 39 (angular gyrus region) has been repeatedly implicated in genetic studies of language, social cognition, and neuropsychiatric risk, although most GWAS and imaging‑genetics findings target broader parietal–temporal networks rather than this precise Talairach parcel. Variants in FOXP2, CNTNAP2, DCDC2, KIAA0319, and other language/reading-related genes have been associated with structural and functional differences in temporo‑parietal regions encompassing BA39, including altered gray matter and activation during phonological and reading tasks, and susceptibility to developmental dyslexia and specific language impairment. Large neuroimaging GWAS consortia (e.g., ENIGMA, UK Biobank studies) have identified polygenic influences on cortical thickness and surface area in temporal and inferior parietal regions overlapping BA39, with genetic correlations to educational attainment, general cognitive ability, and reading performance. Autism spectrum disorder and schizophrenia risk loci (e.g., complement pathway genes such as C4, synaptic genes like GRIN2A, and multiple common polygenic variants) have been linked to structural and connectivity alterations in the superior temporal and temporo‑parietal junction areas that include BA39, supporting a role for this region in social perception and language-related deficits. Alzheimer’s disease and mild cognitive impairment GWAS signals, particularly in APOE and other amyloid and tau pathway genes, have also been associated with atrophy patterns and hypometabolism in temporo‑parietal regions including the angular gyrus, consistent with the involvement of BA39 in episodic memory and semantic processing. While no single variant is uniquely tied to BA39, convergent imaging‑genetic evidence indicates that its morphology and function are shaped by polygenic architectures for language, reading, cognition, and psychiatric and neurodegenerative disease risk.
Overview generated by GPT-4o (2026).
Region ID: 709
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
This resource is licensed under CC0 1.0 Universal (Public Domain).