ReviewHormones and behavior2015
Surprising origins of sex differences in the brain.
Review in Hormones and behavior, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 79 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
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
79 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 158 citations in OpenAlex.
- Steroid hormone pathways, vitamin D and autism: a systematic review.Journal of neural transmission (Vienna, Austria : 1996) · 2023Pooled it
- Female rats adopt a safety-first strategy in a high-conflict platform mediated avoidance task.Frontiers in behavioral neuroscience · 2026Article
- Cell Type-Specific Hormonal Signaling Configures Hypothalamic Circuits for Parenting.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Sexual Dimorphisms in Neurodevelopment May Affect TBI Recovery in Pediatric Patients.Biomedicines · 2025Review
- Dmrt2 regulates sex-biased neuronal development in the cingulate cortex.Cellular and molecular life sciences : CMLS · 2025Article
- Neuron soma size and density measurements in rat striatal regions disaggregated by sex and estrous cycle phase.Brain structure & function · 2025Article
- CHD8 adulthood microglial knockdown in C57BL6 mice induces behavioral, morphological, and transcriptional changes in a sex-dependent manner.Translational psychiatry · 2025Article
- Cumulative risk assessment as the pathway to public health protection for behavioral neurotoxicity.Neurotoxicology · 2025Review
- Maternal insulinemic and inflammatory dietary patterns and risk of child neurodevelopmental delay.European journal of nutrition · 2024Article
- The impact of sex/gender-specific funding and editorial policies on biomedical research outcomes: a cross-national analysis (2000-2021).Scientific reports · 2024Article
- The role of gut-derived short-chain fatty acids in Parkinson's disease.Neurogenetics · 2024Review
- Systemic inflammation following traumatic injury and its impact on neuroinflammatory gene expression in the rodent brain.Journal of neuroinflammation · 2024Article
- Viral-mediated inflammation by Poly I:C induces the chemokine CCL5 in NK cells and its receptors CCR1 and CCR5 in microglia in the neonatal rat cerebellum.NeuroImmune pharmacology and therapeutics · 2024Article
- The Role of Gut-derived Short-Chain Fatty Acids in Multiple Sclerosis.Neuromolecular medicine · 2024Review
- Current status and significance of research on sex differences in neuroscience: a narrative review and bibliometric analysis.Ewha medical journal · 2024Review
- Brain, behavior, and physiological changes associated with predator stress-An animal model for trauma exposure in adult and neonatal rats.Frontiers in molecular neuroscience · 2024Article
- Pain mechanisms in the transgender individual: a review.Frontiers in pain research (Lausanne, Switzerland) · 2024Review
- Females exhibit smaller volumes of brain activation and lower inter-subject variability during motor tasks.Scientific reports · 2023Article
- Sex-biased gene and microRNA expression in the developing mouse brain is associated with neurodevelopmental functions and neurological phenotypes.Biology of sex differences · 2023Article
- Robust sex differences in functional brain connectivity are present in utero.Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991) · 2023Article
19 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
4 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
This article is part of a Special Issue "SBN 2014". Discerning the biologic origins of neuroanatomical sex differences has been of interest since they were first reported in the late 60's and early 70's. The centrality of gonadal hormone exposure during a developmental critical window cannot be denied but hormones are indirect agents of change, acting to induce gene transcription or modulate membrane bound signaling cascades. Sex differences in the brain include regional volume differences due to differential cell death, neuronal and glial genesis, dendritic branching and synaptic patterning. Early emphasis on mechanism therefore focused on neurotransmitters and neural growth factors, but by and large these endpoints failed to explain the origins of neural sex differences. More recently evidence has accumulated in favor of inflammatory mediators and immune cells as principle regulators of brain sexual differentiation and reveal that the establishment of dimorphic circuits is not cell autonomous but instead requires extensive cell-to-cell communication including cells of non-neuronal origin. Despite the multiplicity of cells involved the nature of the sex differences in the neuroanatomical endpoints suggests canalization, a process that explains the robustness of individuals in the face of intrinsic and extrinsic variability. We propose that some neuroanatomical endpoints are canalized to enhance sex differences in the brain by reducing variability within one sex while also preventing the sexes from diverging too greatly. We further propose mechanisms by which such canalization could occur and discuss what relevance this may have to sex differences in behavior.
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What OpenQuestion holds
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.