ArticlePsychiatry research. Neuroimaging2023
Neural response to stress differs by sex in young adulthood.
Article in Psychiatry research. Neuroimaging, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 13 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
13 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 16 citations in OpenAlex.
- Neural correlates of acute task-related stress in humans: a systematic review and coordinate-based ALE meta-analysis.Brain imaging and behavior · 2026Pooled it
- Obesity-related RNA mJournal of neural transmission (Vienna, Austria : 1996) · 2026Article
- Amygdala reactivity to social stress in young adults: A scoping review of neuroimaging studies.Neurobiology of stress · 2026Review
- Developing a multi-modal neuroimaging-based BrainAge model across childhood.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Sex differences in neural stress responses over psychosocial stress exposure.Brain structure & function · 2026Article
- Association of neural responses to acute psychosocial stress with relapse in depression.Brain imaging and behavior · 2026Article
- Depressive symptoms partially mediate the relationship between psychosocial factors and epigenetic age acceleration in a multi-racial/ethnic sample of older adults.Brain, behavior, & immunity - health · 2025Article
- Mobile EEG examination of putative biomarkers of mental health in individuals that use cannabis.NPP - digital psychiatry and neuroscience · 2025Article
- Acute Stress Increases Striatal Connectivity With Cortical Regions Enriched for μ and κ Opioid Receptors.Biological psychiatry · 2024Article
- Anxiety and Depression Associated With Increased Cardiovascular Disease Risk Through Accelerated Development of Risk Factors.JACC. Advances · 2024Article
- The Interaction of Vasopressin with Hormones of the Hypothalamo-Pituitary-Adrenal Axis: The Significance for Therapeutic Strategies in Cardiovascular and Metabolic Diseases.International journal of molecular sciences · 2024Review
- Effects of GABA, Sex, and Stress on Reward Learning in Current and Remitted Major Depression.Biological psychiatry. Cognitive neuroscience and neuroimaging · 2024Article
- Stress-induced brain responses are associated with BMI in women.Communications biology · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
14 authors at 4 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Increase in stress-related disorders in women begins post-puberty and persists throughout the lifespan. To characterize sex differences in stress response in early adulthood, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging while participants underwent a stress task in conjunction with serum cortisol levels and questionnaires assessing anxiety and mood. Forty-two healthy subjects aged 18-25 years participated (21M, 21F). Interaction of stress and sex in brain activation and connectivity were examined. Results demonstrated significant sex differences in brain activity with women exhibiting increased activation in regions that inhibit arousal compared to men during the stress paradigm. Women had increased connectivity among stress circuitry regions and default mode network, whereas men had increased connectivity between stress and cognitive control regions. In a subset of subjects (13F, 17M), we obtained gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) magnetic resonance spectroscopy in rostral anterior cingulate cortex (rostral ACC) and dorsolateral prefrotal cortex (dlPFC) and conducted exploratory analyses to relate GABA measurements with sex differences in brain activation and connectivity. Prefrontal GABA levels were negatively associated with inferior temporal gyrus activation in men and women and with ventromedial prefrontal cortex activation in men. Despite sex differences in neural response, we found similar subjective ratings of anxiety and mood, cortisol levels, and GABA levels between sexes, suggesting sex differences in brain activity result in similar behavioral responses among the sexes. These results help establish sex differences in healthy brain activity from which we can better understand sex differences underlying stress-associated illnesses.
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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.