ArticleCerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991)2018
Sex Differences in the Adult Human Brain: Evidence from 5216 UK Biobank Participants.
Article in Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991), 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 425 papers, 2 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.
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Who cites it
425 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Brain maps of general cognitive functioning: neuroimaging and neurobiological signatures.Translational psychiatry · 2025Pooled it
- Relating Cognition to both Brain Structure and Function: A Systematic Review of Methods.Brain connectivity · 2023Pooled it
- Influence of sex and systemic lupus erythematosus disease status on cerebral cortex structure.Lupus science & medicine · 2026Trial
- Sex matters for the enhancement of cognitive training with transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS).Biology of sex differences · 2023Trial
- Frailty and functional brain connectivity (FBC) in older adults with mild cognitive impairment (MCI): baseline results from the SYNERGIC Trial.GeroScience · 2023Trial
- The relevance of rich club regions for functional outcome post-stroke is enhanced in women.Human brain mapping · 2023Trial
- How the Brain Interprets Pain in Autistic People: Does Sex Matter?European journal of pain (London, England) · 2026Article
- Orbitofrontal and Medial Frontal Gray Matter Volumes Are Associated With Hyperactivity Traits in 2548 Nonclinical Adults.Human brain mapping · 2026Article
- Clinical validation pipeline of a deep learning model for segmenting and quantifying intracranial and ventricular volumes on computed tomography.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Regional Brain Volume Variation Across Adulthood: A Cross-Sectional MRI Analysis of Age, Sex, and Hemispheric Asymmetry.Life (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Immunosuppressant Use Mediates Neuroprotection Against Alzheimer's Disease in Rheumatoid Arthritis-A Two-Step Mendelian Randomization and NHANES Study.International journal of rheumatic diseases · 2026Article
- Substantial evidence against sex differences in bed nucleus of the stria terminalis volume in the human brain.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Generalizable and explainable deep learning for brain MRI: a multi-cohort evaluation of 3D architectures for age and sex prediction.Brain informatics · 2026Article
- Neurodegeneration in Glaucoma: Microstructural Magnetic Resonance Imaging Evidence Within and Beyond the Visual Pathway.Investigative ophthalmology & visual science · 2026Article
- Article
- Population-based Brain Templates for Ultra-Low-Field MRI.Scientific data · 2026Article
- Regional sex differences in human cortical anatomy vary in their morphometric bases and overlap with sex chromosomal and gonadal influences.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Predicting stress response trajectories: Differential contributions of limbic and prefrontal regions to cortisol and affective responses.Translational psychiatry · 2026Article
- Sex Differences in Depression: Adult Cytogenesis as Potential Target for Precision Psychiatry.Cells · 2026Review
- Sex-related structural alterations across common epilepsies: a worldwide ENIGMA study.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
365 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
18 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Sex differences in the human brain are of interest for many reasons: for example, there are sex differences in the observed prevalence of psychiatric disorders and in some psychological traits that brain differences might help to explain. We report the largest single-sample study of structural and functional sex differences in the human brain (2750 female, 2466 male participants; mean age 61.7 years, range 44-77 years). Males had higher raw volumes, raw surface areas, and white matter fractional anisotropy; females had higher raw cortical thickness and higher white matter tract complexity. There was considerable distributional overlap between the sexes. Subregional differences were not fully attributable to differences in total volume, total surface area, mean cortical thickness, or height. There was generally greater male variance across the raw structural measures. Functional connectome organization showed stronger connectivity for males in unimodal sensorimotor cortices, and stronger connectivity for females in the default mode network. This large-scale study provides a foundation for attempts to understand the causes and consequences of sex differences in adult brain structure and function.
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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.