Temporal pole

Last revised by Yvette Mellam on 29 Jul 2024

The temporal pole is an anatomical landmark that corresponds to the anterior end of the temporal lobe, lying in the middle cranial fossa

It corresponds to Brodmann area 38 and has strong connections with the amygdala and orbital prefrontal cortex, and is sometimes recognized as a component of paralimbic region, although it is not well understood.

Several studies have shown that the temporal pole is an association cortex involved with multimodal analysis, especially in social and emotional processing. The left temporal pole is associated with semantic memory (meanings, names, and general impersonal facts) 3 and the right temporal pole is related to personal and episodic memories, being more closely associated with emotion and socially relevant memory 2