ArticleCortex; a journal devoted to the study of the nervous system and behavior2018
Investigating the differential contributions of sex and brain size to gray matter asymmetry.
Article in Cortex; a journal devoted to the study of the nervous system and behavior, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 19 papers.
What it found
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Who cites it
19 citing papers in PubMed.
- Deletion of the X-chromosomal geneScience translational medicine · 2025Article
- Functional divergence between the two cerebral hemispheres contributes to human fluid intelligence.Communications biology · 2025Article
- Degree centrality values in the left calcarine as a potential imaging biomarker for anxious major depressive disorder.World journal of psychiatry · 2025Article
- Disentangling the effect of sex from brain size on brain organization and cognitive functioning.GeroScience · 2025Article
- Changes in voxel-wise gray matter asymmetry over time.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2025Article
- Effects of Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia (CAH) and Biological Sex on Brain Size.Anatomia (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Article
- Normal cohorts in automated brain atrophy estimation: how many healthy subjects to include?European radiology · 2024Article
- Large-scale analysis of structural brain asymmetries during neurodevelopment: Associations with age and sex in 4265 children and adolescents.Human brain mapping · 2024Article
- Discriminant analysis using MRI asymmetry indices and cognitive scores of women with temporal lobe epilepsy or schizophrenia.Neuroradiology · 2024Article
- A multiscale characterization of cortical shape asymmetries in early psychosis.Brain communications · 2024Article
- Changes in the volumes and asymmetry of subcortical structures in healthy individuals according to gender.Anatomical science international · 2023Article
- Article
- Motor training-related brain reorganization in patients with cerebellar degeneration.Human brain mapping · 2022Article
- Article
- Sex-related patterns of intrinsic functional connectivity in children and adolescents with autism spectrum disorders.Autism : the international journal of research and practice · 2020Article
- Changes in Gray Matter Asymmetries of the Fusiform and Parahippocampal Gyruses in Patients With Subcortical Ischemic Vascular Disease.Frontiers in neurology · 2020Article
- Cerebellar Modulation of Mesolimbic Dopamine Transmission Is Functionally Asymmetrical.Cerebellum (London, England) · 2019Article
- A deformation-based approach for characterizing brain asymmetries at different spatial scales of resolution.Journal of neuroscience methods · 2019Article
- Intracranial volume: To adjust or not to adjust? It is not a matter of if, but how.Imaging neuroscience (Cambridge, Mass.)Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Scientific reports of sex differences in brain asymmetry - the difference between the two hemispheres - are rather inconsistent. Some studies report no sex differences whatsoever, others reveal striking sex effects, with large discrepancies across studies in the magnitude, direction, and location of the observed effects. One reason for the lack of consistency in findings may be the confounding effects of brain size as male brains are usually larger than female brains. Thus, the goal of this study was to investigate the differential contributions of sex and brain size to asymmetry with a particular focus on gray matter. For this purpose, we applied a well-validated workflow for voxel-wise gray matter asymmetry analyses in a sample of 96 participants (48 males/48 females), in which a subsample of brains (24 males/24 females) were matched for size. By comparing outcomes based on three different contrasts - all males versus all females; all large brains versus all small brains; matched males versus matched females - we were able to disentangle the contributing effects of sex and brain size, to reveal true (size-independent) sex differences in gray matter asymmetry: Males show a significantly stronger rightward asymmetry than females within the cerebellum, specifically in lobules VII, VIII, and IX. This finding agrees closely with prior research suggesting sex differences in sensorimotor, cognitive and emotional function, which are all moderated by the respective cerebellar sections. No other significant sex effects on gray matter were detected across the remainder of the brain.
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