Brain structural changes in women and men during midlife

Abstract

HighlightsWomen lost more total brain volume than men during 8.5 years follow-up in midlife.Women showed greater brain reduction in bilateral brain regions with and without co-varying for total brain volume loss.Men exhibited greater brain reduction in mid-line brain regions after correcting for the total brain volume loss.

Sexual dimorphism of the planum temporale in schizophrenia: A MRI study

“…Possible explanations for the lack of consistency with Walder's study might be related to the small sample size employed by those authors or because the PT is a structure not easy to isolate, and its boundaries are not completely defined (Shapleske et al, 1999). Furthermore, it is important to highlight that potential mechanisms explaining sexual dimorphism of PT in SCZ may be related to gender differentiation during brain maturation (Guo et al, 2016), which in turn may explain gender differences reported in stress vulnerability and response, hormonal pattern and neurodevelopment (Goldstein et al, 2015). Therefore, based on the evidence reporting that SCZ is a neurodevelopmental disease, it is plausible that these gender-related differences are even more pronounced in these patients (Bosia et al, 2015).…”

Associations of age and sex with brain volumes and asymmetry in 2–5-week-old infants

“…In addition, male brains have been shown to grow faster than female brains during the first 3 months of life (Holland et al 2014 ). Overall though, sex differences in infant brain volumes seem to be subtle, similarly to those seen in adults (Guo et al 2016 ). Fourth, extant studies indicate that left–right asymmetries exist already in the fetal brain (Rajagopalan et al 2011 ) and distinctive growth patterns can be seen in different parts of the neonatal brain (Dean et al 2018 ; Deoni et al 2011 ; Gilmore et al 2007 ; Tanaka et al 2013 ).…”

Sexual Regional Dimorphism of Post-Adolescent and Middle Age Brain Maturation. A Multi-center 3T MRI Study

“…To date, however, most of the studies investigating sex effect on brain structures focused on samples in the early or late phases of their life (Gennatas et al, 2017;Ritchie et al, 2018). Indeed, only few investigations focused on the interaction between sex and age in the early and middle adulthood, usually thought as more stable periods (Guo et al, 2016). Understanding how sex differences impact on brain maturation is of crucial importance, as it may point toward the identification of sex-specific biological and environmental mechanisms that lead to the observed sex differences regarding both prevalence and features of mental diseases, such as psychiatric disorders (Venkatesh et al, 2008), and would also help understanding behavioral sex differences (Gur and Gur, 2017).…”

“…Thus far, although some studies assessed the interaction between sex and ages on brain structural changes during postadolescence and middle adulthood, when disabling psychiatric disorders like schizophrenia begin to manifest (Immonen et al, 2017), the findings are still far to be conclusive. Indeed, given the differences between studies, results comparing such sex-age interactions during midlife (Guo et al, 2016) and between first and late adulthood (Jancke et al, 2015) are difficult to integrate. For instance, while the longitudinal study from Guo et al (2016) reported differential regional brain changes between sexes (even after covarying for total brain volume changes), the cross-sectional study from Jancke et al (2015) mostly attributed such differences to the influence of brain size.…”