Brodmann area 40 (BA40) is part of the
parietal cortex in the
human brain
The human brain is the central organ (anatomy), organ of the nervous system, and with the spinal cord, comprises the central nervous system. It consists of the cerebrum, the brainstem and the cerebellum. The brain controls most of the activi ...
. The inferior part of BA40 is in the area of the
supramarginal gyrus, which lies at the posterior end of the
lateral fissure, in the inferior lateral part of the
parietal lobe
The parietal lobe is one of the four Lobes of the brain, major lobes of the cerebral cortex in the brain of mammals. The parietal lobe is positioned above the temporal lobe and behind the frontal lobe and central sulcus.
The parietal lobe integra ...
.
It is bounded approximately by the
intraparietal sulcus
The intraparietal sulcus (IPS) is located on the lateral surface of the parietal lobe, and consists of an oblique and a horizontal portion. The IPS contains a series of functionally distinct subregions that have been intensively investigated usin ...
, the
inferior postcentral sulcus, the
posterior subcentral sulcus and the
lateral sulcus
The lateral sulcus (or lateral fissure, also called Sylvian fissure, after Franciscus Sylvius) is the most prominent sulcus (neuroanatomy), sulcus of each cerebral hemisphere in the human brain. The lateral sulcus (neuroanatomy), sulcus is a deep ...
. It is bounded caudally by the
angular area 39 (H), rostrally and dorsally by the
caudal postcentral area 2, and ventrally by the
subcentral area 43 and the
superior temporal area 22 (Brodmann-1909).
Cytoarchitectonically defined subregions of rostral BA40/the supramarginal gyrus are PF, PFcm, PFm, PFop, and PFt. Area PF is the homologue to macaque area PF, part of the mirror neuron system, and active in humans during imitation.
Function
The supramarginal gyrus part of Brodmann area 40 is the region in the inferior parietal lobe that is involved in reading both as regards meaning and
phonology
Phonology (formerly also phonemics or phonematics: "phonemics ''n.'' 'obsolescent''1. Any procedure for identifying the phonemes of a language from a corpus of data. 2. (formerly also phonematics) A former synonym for phonology, often pre ...
.
[Stoeckel C, Gough PM, Watkins KE, Devlin JT. (2009). Supramarginal gyrus involvement in visual word recognition.
Cortex. 45(9):1091-6. ]
Additional images
Image:Gray725.png, Lateral surface of left cerebral hemisphere, viewed from above.
Image:Gray1197.png, Drawing of a cast to illustrate the relations of the brain to the skull. (Supramarginal gyrus labeled at upper left, in yellow section.)
See also
*
parietal operculum
*
Brodmann area
A Brodmann area is a region of the cerebral cortex, in the human or other primate brain, defined by its cytoarchitecture, or histological structure and organization of cells. The concept was first introduced by the German anatomist Korbinian B ...
*
List of regions in the human brain
The human brain anatomical regions are ordered following standard neuroanatomy hierarchies. Functional, connective, and developmental regions are listed in parentheses where appropriate.
Hindbrain (rhombencephalon)
Myelencephalon
* M ...
References
{{Prosencephalon
40
Parietal lobe