ArticlePloS one2014
Sexual dimorphism in the human olfactory bulb: females have more neurons and glial cells than males.
Article in PloS one, 2014. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 52 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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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.
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Who cites it
52 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 163 citations in OpenAlex.
- Olfactory dysfunction in aging and neurodegenerative diseases.Ageing research reviews · 2021Pooled it
- The neural basis of sex differences in sexual behavior: A quantitative meta-analysis.Frontiers in neuroendocrinology · 2016Pooled it
- Sex differences in the effects of aromatherapy on anxiety and salivary oxytocin levels.Frontiers in endocrinology · 2024Trial
- Article
- Sex differences modulate olfactory bulb volume-function relationships but not olfactory training-induced plasticity.Brain structure & function · 2026Article
- Olfactory perception and wellbeing across hormonal contraceptive users and menstrual cycle phases.Frontiers in human neuroscience · 2026Article
- Olfactory Dysfunction and Cognitive Decline: Are They Related?Current allergy and asthma reports · 2025Review
- Single-nucleus neuronal transcriptional profiling of male C. elegans uncovers regulators of sex-specific and sex-shared behaviors.Cell reports · 2025Article
- Dynamic Interplay Between miR-124-3p and EGF in the Regulation of Overgrowth via RNA Signaling.Biomolecules · 2025Article
- Detection of cell-type-specific differentially methylated regions in epigenome-wide association studies.Bioinformatics (Oxford, England) · 2025Article
- Raw or Cooked? Exploring Vegetable Acceptance Among Chilean Children from Different Socioeconomic Backgrounds.Foods (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Unpleasant odors compared to pleasant ones cause higher cortical activations detectable by fNIRS and observable mostly in females.APL bioengineering · 2025Article
- Factors Associated With Persisting Olfactory Dysfunction After COVID-19.Clinical otolaryngology : official journal of ENT-UK ; official journal of Netherlands Society for Oto-Rhino-Laryngology & Cervico-Facial Surgery · 2025Article
- Long-term self-reported symptoms and psychophysical tests in COVID-19 subjects experiencing persistent olfactory dysfunction: a 4-year follow-up study.Frontiers in neural circuits · 2025Article
- Sex differences in olfactory behavior and neurophysiology in Long Evans rats.Journal of neurophysiology · 2025Article
- Preliminary Findings on the Morphometric Characteristics of the Olfactory Bulb in the Cat.Animals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2024Article
- Article
- Sex and gender differences in cognitive resilience to aging and Alzheimer's disease.Alzheimer's & dementia : the journal of the Alzheimer's Association · 2024Review
- Correlation of Molecular Status with Preoperative Olfactory Function in Olfactory Groove Meningioma.Cancers · 2024Article
- Study on the Effect ofMolecules (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
13 authors at 3 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Sex differences in the human olfactory function reportedly exist for olfactory sensitivity, odorant identification and memory, and tasks in which odors are rated based on psychological features such as familiarity, intensity, pleasantness, and others. Which might be the neural bases for these behavioral differences? The number of cells in olfactory regions, and especially the number of neurons, may represent a more accurate indicator of the neural machinery than volume or weight, but besides gross volume measures of the human olfactory bulb, no systematic study of sex differences in the absolute number of cells has yet been undertaken. In this work, we investigate a possible sexual dimorphism in the olfactory bulb, by quantifying postmortem material from 7 men and 11 women (ages 55-94 years) with the isotropic fractionator, an unbiased and accurate method to estimate absolute cell numbers in brain regions. Female bulbs weighed 0.132 g in average, while male bulbs weighed 0.137 g, a non-significant difference; however, the total number of cells was 16.2 million in females, and 9.2 million in males, a significant difference of 43.2%. The number of neurons in females reached 6.9 million, being no more than 3.5 million in males, a difference of 49.3%. The number of non-neuronal cells also proved higher in women than in men: 9.3 million and 5.7 million, respectively, a significant difference of 38.7%. The same differences remained when corrected for mass. Results demonstrate a sex-related difference in the absolute number of total, neuronal and non-neuronal cells, favoring women by 40-50%. It is conceivable that these differences in quantitative cellularity may have functional impact, albeit difficult to infer how exactly this would be, without knowing the specific circuits cells make. However, the reported advantage of women as compared to men may stimulate future work on sex dimorphism of synaptic microcircuitry in the olfactory bulb.
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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.