SynthesisNeuroscience and biobehavioral reviews2014
A meta-analysis of sex differences in human brain structure.
Synthesis in Neuroscience and biobehavioral reviews, 2014. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 537 papers, 4 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
537 citing papers in PubMed, 4 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Structural rather than functional brain alterations that characterize the differences between major depressive disorder and primary insomnia: a comparative meta-analysis.BMC medicine · 2025Pooled it
- No reliable gray matter alterations in idiopathic dystonia.Frontiers in neurology · 2025Pooled it
- Parallel electrophysiological abnormalities due to COVID-19 infection and to Alzheimer's disease and related dementia.Alzheimer's & dementia : the journal of the Alzheimer's Association · 2024Pooled it
- Sex difference of pre- and post-natal exposure to six developmental neurotoxicants on intellectual abilities: a systematic review and meta-analysis of human studies.Environmental health : a global access science source · 2023Pooled it
- Post-Lunch Napping as a Strategy to Enhance Physiological Performance and Cognitive Function in Elite Volleyball Players.Medicina (Kaunas, Lithuania) · 2024Trial
- Sex matters for the enhancement of cognitive training with transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS).Biology of sex differences · 2023Trial
- The relevance of rich club regions for functional outcome post-stroke is enhanced in women.Human brain mapping · 2023Trial
- Localized surface-based morphometric differences in painful temporomandibular disorder.Neuroimage. Reports · 2026Article
- Comparisons of thalamocortical functional connectivity in transgender women and cisgender individuals: associations with cognition in a Chinese cohort.Dialogues in clinical neuroscience · 2026Article
- Volumetric and Intrastructural Characterization of the Substantia Nigra Using Optimized Synthetic MR Images Derived From Quantitative T1 Maps at 3 T.NMR in biomedicine · 2026Article
- Effect sizes for brain-based predictive models of cognition across the lifespan.Communications psychology · 2026Review
- Sex-related differences in baseline neuroimaging, treatment workflow, and outcomes of ischemic stroke following thrombectomy: data from an inverse propensity score weighted analysis.La Radiologia medica · 2026Article
- Sex, Gender, and the Search for Analytic Truth.Journal of magnetic resonance imaging : JMRI · 2026Article
- Age-related degradation of cerebellar functional network topology.GeroScience · 2026Article
- Sex-specific brain reserve and progression from mild cognitive impairment to Alzheimer's disease dementia.Alzheimer's & dementia : the journal of the Alzheimer's Association · 2026Article
- Orbitofrontal and Medial Frontal Gray Matter Volumes Are Associated With Hyperactivity Traits in 2548 Nonclinical Adults.Human brain mapping · 2026Article
- The Effect of Mild Traumatic Brain Injury on the Hypothalamic-Pituitary-Ovarian Axis: A Narrative Review.Journal of neurotrauma · 2026Review
- Bidirectional association between irritability and executive function in youth from late childhood to early adolescence: Between- and within-person effects.Journal of research on adolescence : the official journal of the Society for Research on Adolescence · 2026Article
- Clinical validation pipeline of a deep learning model for segmenting and quantifying intracranial and ventricular volumes on computed tomography.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Sex-Specific Regional Brain Morphometric Correlates of Neighborhood Socioeconomic Disadvantage in Clinical Neuroimaging.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
477 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
7 authors.
Funding
Abstract
The prevalence, age of onset, and symptomatology of many neuropsychiatric conditions differ between males and females. To understand the causes and consequences of sex differences it is important to establish where they occur in the human brain. We report the first meta-analysis of typical sex differences on global brain volume, a descriptive account of the breakdown of studies of each compartmental volume by six age categories, and whole-brain voxel-wise meta-analyses on brain volume and density. Gaussian-process regression coordinate-based meta-analysis was used to examine sex differences in voxel-based regional volume and density. On average, males have larger total brain volumes than females. Examination of the breakdown of studies providing total volumes by age categories indicated a bias towards the 18-59 year-old category. Regional sex differences in volume and tissue density include the amygdala, hippocampus and insula, areas known to be implicated in sex-biased neuropsychiatric conditions. Together, these results suggest candidate regions for investigating the asymmetric effect that sex has on the developing brain, and for understanding sex-biased neurological and psychiatric conditions.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.