ReviewWiley interdisciplinary reviews. Developmental biology2020
Signatures of sex: Sex differences in gene expression in the vertebrate brain.
Review in Wiley interdisciplinary reviews. Developmental biology, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 45 papers.
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
45 citing papers in PubMed, 91 citations in OpenAlex.
- Single-Nucleus Transcriptomics of the Mouse Medial Preoptic Area Reveals Sex-Dependent Molecular Signatures of Social Dominance.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Article
- Restoring early postnatal synaptic dysregulation rescues motor neuron degeneration in a mouse model of Spinal and Bulbar Muscular Atrophy.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Long-term consequences of prenatal saccharin exposure: evidence of sex-specific molecular programing in the prefrontal cortex and behavior of adolescent rats.Frontiers in behavioral neuroscience · 2026Article
- Early life social isolation stress and pain vulnerability: unraveling neuroimmune mechanisms and central sensitization.Frontiers in pharmacology · 2026Review
- Epigenetic regulation of brain development, plasticity, and response to early-life stress.Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology · 2026Review
- Article
- Influence of Gonadal and Chromosomal Sex on the Brain Transcriptome in a Mouse Species with Natural Sex Reversal.Molecular biology and evolution · 2025Article
- Kv3 channel agonist ameliorates the phenotype of a mouse model of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.Acta neuropathologica communications · 2025Article
- RNA sequencing analysis identifies sex differences in transcriptional signatures in the dorsal striatum of female and male rats after withdrawal from methamphetamine self-administration.Neurochemistry international · 2025Article
- Sex differences in the genetic regulation of the human plasma proteome.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Cellular evolution of the hypothalamic preoptic area of behaviorally divergent deer mice.eLife · 2025Article
- Sexual dimorphism in periodontal inflammation: A cross-sectional study.Journal of periodontology · 2025Article
- Early-life stress sensitizes response to future stress: Evidence and mechanisms.Neurobiology of stress · 2025Review
- Single-Cell Analysis of Sex and Gender Differences in the Human Brain During Development and Disease.Cellular and molecular neurobiology · 2025Article
- The X chromosome's influences on the human brain.Science advances · 2025Article
- Experience-dependent, sexually dimorphic synaptic connectivity defined by sex-specific cadherin expression.Science advances · 2024Article
- Spatial Single-Cell Mapping of Transcriptional Differences Across Genetic Backgrounds in Mouse Brains.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2024Article
- Sex-Differential Gene Expression in Developing Human Cortex and Its Intersection With Autism Risk Pathways.Biological psychiatry global open science · 2024Article
- Experience-dependent, sexually dimorphic synaptic connectivity defined by sex-specific cadherin expression.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Women and men differ in disease prevalence, symptoms, and progression rates for many psychiatric and neurological disorders. As more preclinical studies include both sexes in experimental design, an increasing number of sex differences in physiology and behavior have been reported. In the brain, sex-typical behaviors are thought to result from sex-specific patterns of neural activity in response to the same sensory stimulus or context. These differential firing patterns likely arise as a consequence of underlying anatomic or molecular sex differences. Accordingly, gene expression in the brains of females and males has been extensively investigated, with the goal of identifying biological pathways that specify or modulate sex differences in brain function. However, there is surprisingly little consensus on sex-biased genes across studies and only a handful of robust candidates have been pursued in the follow-up experiments. Furthermore, it is not known how or when sex-biased gene expression originates, as few studies have been performed in the developing brain. Here we integrate molecular genetic and neural circuit perspectives to provide a conceptual framework of how sex differences in gene expression can arise in the brain. We detail mechanisms of gene regulation by steroid hormones, highlight landmark studies in rodents and humans, identify emerging themes, and offer recommendations for future research. This article is categorized under: Nervous System Development > Vertebrates: General Principles Gene Expression and Transcriptional Hierarchies > Regulatory Mechanisms Gene Expression and Transcriptional Hierarchies > Sex Determination.
Indexed as
Identifiers
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.