ArticleHuman brain mapping2020
Sex differences in brain connectivity and male vulnerability in very preterm children.
Article in Human brain mapping, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 27 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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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
27 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Internalizing and Externalizing Symptoms in Children and Adolescents Born Preterm or Low Birth Weight: A Meta-Analysis.Journal of youth and adolescence · 2025Pooled it
- Sex differences in the effects of prematurity and/or low birthweight on neurodevelopmental outcomes: systematic review and meta-analyses.Biology of sex differences · 2023Pooled it
- Incomplete network restoration may be associated with higher relapse risk in women with major depressive disorder.Psychiatry and clinical neurosciences · 2026Article
- Massage-Related Changes in Cortical Activity and Cerebral Oxygenation in Healthy Term Infants: An Exploratory EEG-fNIRS Study with Sex-Specific Observations.Neurology international · 2026Article
- Inflammatory reprogramming of immature oligodendrocytes perturbs myelination and neurodevelopment in a dual-hit model of preterm brain injury.Brain, behavior, & immunity - health · 2026Article
- Neonatal inflammation predicts adolescent brain volume and neurologic outcomes in children born extremely prematurely.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Associations between postnatal cerebral oxygen availability and utilization in very to late preterm infants and neurodevelopmental outcome.Scientific reports · 2026Observational
- A Cross-Lagged Panel Analysis of Cortisol Levels and Internalizing Behaviors in Children Born Very Preterm Across Early Childhood: Associations Differ for Boys and Girls at Age 1.5 Years.Developmental psychobiology · 2025Article
- Visual pathways functioning in healthy pre-term adolescents: Sex but not gestational age effect.Pediatric research · 2025Article
- Roles of chromosomal and gonadal sex in the fetal and placental responses to maternal food restriction in mice.Molecular human reproduction · 2025Article
- Neonatal Sucrose and Internalizing Behaviors at 18 Months in Children Born Very Preterm.JAMA network open · 2025Article
- Abnormalities in cerebellar subregions' volume and cerebellocerebral structural covariance in autism spectrum disorder.Autism research : official journal of the International Society for Autism Research · 2025Article
- Sex-differences in Mothers' own milk and neurodevelopmental outcomes in preterm infants.Frontiers in pediatrics · 2025Article
- Socioeconomic status moderates associations between hippocampal development and cognition in preterms.Annals of clinical and translational neurology · 2024Article
- Central Autonomic Network and Heart Rate Variability in Premature Neonates.Developmental neuroscience · 2024Article
- Maternal Voice and Tactile Stimulation Modulate Oxytocin in Mothers of Hospitalized Preterm Infants: A Randomized Crossover Trial.Children (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Article
- Early-Life Critical Windows of Susceptibility to Manganese Exposure and Sex-Specific Changes in Brain Connectivity in Late Adolescence.Biological psychiatry global open science · 2023Article
- Robust sex differences in functional brain connectivity are present in utero.Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991) · 2023Article
- Sex-Specific Neurodevelopmental Outcomes Among Offspring of Mothers With SARS-CoV-2 Infection During Pregnancy.JAMA network open · 2023Article
- Sex Differences in Microglia Activation in a Rodent Model of Preterm Hypoxic Ischemic Injury with Caffeine Treatment.Biomedicines · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
8 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Evidence indicates better cognitive and behavioral outcomes for females born very preterm (≤32 weeks gestation) compared to males, but the neurophysiology underlying this apparent resiliency of the female brain remains poorly understood. Here we test the hypothesis that very preterm males express more pronounced connectivity alterations as a reflection of higher male vulnerability. Resting state MEG recordings, neonatal and psychometric data were collected from 100 children at age 8 years: very preterm boys (n = 27), very preterm girls (n = 34), full-term boys (n = 15) and full-term girls (n = 24). Neuromagnetic source dynamics were reconstructed from 76 cortical brain regions. Functional connectivity was estimated using inter-regional phase-synchronization. We performed a series of multivariate analyses to test for differences across groups as well as to explore relationships between deviations in functional connectivity and psychometric scores and neonatal factors for very preterm children. Very preterm boys displayed significantly higher (p < .001) absolute deviation from average connectivity of same-sex full-term group, compared to very preterm girls versus full-term girls. In the connectivity comparison between very preterm and full-term groups separately for boys and girls, significant group differences (p < .05) were observed for boys, but not girls. Sex differences in connectivity (p < .01) were observed in very preterm children but not in full-term groups. Our findings indicate that very preterm boys have greater alterations in resting neurophysiological network communication than girls. Such uneven brain communication disruption in very preterm boys and girls suggests that stronger connectivity alterations might contribute to male vulnerability in long-term behavioral and cognitive outcome.
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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.