ArticleCerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991)2020
Sex Differences in Variability of Brain Structure Across the Lifespan.
Article in Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991), 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 36 papers, 1 of them a synthesis 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
36 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 68 citations in OpenAlex.
- Greater male than female variability in regional brain structure across the lifespan.Human brain mapping · 2022Pooled it
- Repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (rTMS) Treatment Reduces Variability in Brain Function in Schizophrenia: Data From a Double-Blind, Randomized, Sham-Controlled Trial.Schizophrenia bulletin · 2025Trial
- Growth of White Matter Signal Aberrations and Cortical Changes in Men and Women: A 9-Year Multiple-Time-Point Longitudinal MRI Study in Older Adults.Human brain mapping · 2026Article
- Cognitive-Behavioral Predictors of Individual Variability of Functional Connectivity in Healthy Young Adults.Research square · 2026Article
- Large-sample PCA eigenvectors stabilize cortical thickness components and improve small sample brain behavior prediction.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Regional reconfiguration of functional brain networks during childhood and adolescence: evaluating age and sex effect.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Metabolic, demographic, and behavioral risk factors predict brain structural variability in the general population: an analysis of the human connectome project young adults.Neurological sciences : official journal of the Italian Neurological Society and of the Italian Society of Clinical Neurophysiology · 2026Article
- A comparative assessment of age- and gender-related variations in brain morphometry using linear and volumetric MRI analysis.BMC medical imaging · 2026Article
- Investigating the causal relationship between multimodal brain imaging-derived phenotypes and insomnia: A Mendelian randomization study.Neurological sciences : official journal of the Italian Neurological Society and of the Italian Society of Clinical Neurophysiology · 2025Article
- Inter- and intra-individual differences in brain sex map to neuroendocrine profiles.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Strategies for studying sex differences in brain aging.Trends in genetics : TIG · 2025Review
- ComBatLS: A Location- and Scale-Preserving Method for Multi-Site Image Harmonization.Human brain mapping · 2025Article
- More similarity than difference: Comparison of within- and between-sex variance in early adolescent brain structure.Imaging neuroscience (Cambridge, Mass.) · 2025Article
- Exploring neuroendocrine influences on the sensorimotor-association axis in a female and a male individual.Imaging neuroscience (Cambridge, Mass.) · 2025Article
- More similarity than difference: comparison of within- and between-sex variance in early adolescent brain structure.Research square · 2024Article
- Atypical Brain Aging and Its Association With Working Memory Performance in Major Depressive Disorder.Biological psychiatry. Cognitive neuroscience and neuroimaging · 2024Article
- ComBatLS: A location- and scale-preserving method for multi-site image harmonization.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2024Article
- Article
- Recommendations for a Better Understanding of Sex and Gender in the Neuroscience of Mental Health.Biological psychiatry global open science · 2024Review
- Sex-difference in the association between social drinking, structural brain aging and cognitive function in older individuals free of cognitive impairment.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
9 authors at 3 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
Several brain disorders exhibit sex differences in onset, presentation, and prevalence. Increased understanding of the neurobiology of sex-based differences in variability across the lifespan can provide insight into both disease vulnerability and resilience. In n = 3069 participants, from 8 to 95 years of age, we found widespread greater variability in males compared with females in cortical surface area and global and subcortical volumes for discrete brain regions. In contrast, variance in cortical thickness was similar for males and females. These findings were supported by multivariate analysis accounting for structural covariance, and present and stable across the lifespan. Additionally, we examined variability among brain regions by sex. We found significant age-by-sex interactions across neuroimaging metrics, whereby in very early life males had reduced among-region variability compared with females, while in very late life this was reversed. Overall, our findings of greater regional variability, but less among-region variability in males in early life may aid our understanding of sex-based risk for neurodevelopmental disorders. In contrast, our findings in late life may provide a potential sex-based risk mechanism for dementia.
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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.