ArticleBiology of sex differences2024
Remembering the null hypothesis when searching for brain sex differences.
Article in Biology of sex differences, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 8 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
8 citing papers in PubMed.
- The "sex-specific effect:" Evaluating analytical approaches to sex-dependence in the behavioral and brain sciences.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Sex and Gender Identities Are Emergent Properties of Neural Complexity.Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Review
- Sex-related differences and associated transcriptional signatures in the brain ventricular system and cerebrospinal fluid development in full-term neonates.Biology of sex differences · 2025Article
- "Precision Medicine" and the Failed Search for Binary Brain Sex Differences to Address Gender Behavioral Health Disparities.American journal of human biology : the official journal of the Human Biology Council · 2025Review
- Cerebral Lateralization During Handwritten and Typed Word Generation: A Functional Transcranial Doppler Ultrasound Study in Left-Handers and Right-Handers.The European journal of neuroscience · 2025Observational
- Sex differences in functional cortical organization reflect differences in network topology rather than cortical morphometry.Nature communications · 2024Article
- Breaking Barriers: Unveiling Sex-Related Differences in Cerebrospinal Fluid Analysis-A Narrative Review.Biology · 2024Review
- Sex Differences in Albumin Quotient and Cerebrospinal Fluid Total Protein Content Do Not Depend on Anthropometric Factors.Journal of personalized medicine · 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
1 author.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Human brain sex differences have fascinated scholars for centuries and become a key focus of neuroscientists since the dawn of MRI. We recently published a major review in Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews showing that most male-female brain differences in humans are small and few have been reliably replicated. Although widely cited, this work was the target of a critical Commentary by DeCasien et al. (Biol Sex Differ 13:43, 2022). In this response, I update our findings and confirm the small effect sizes and pronounced scatter across recent large neuroimaging studies of human sex/gender difference. Based on the sum of data, neuroscientists would be well-advised to take the null hypothesis seriously: that men and women's brains are fundamentally similar, or "monomorphic". This perspective has important implications for how we study the genesis of behavioral and neuropsychiatric gender disparities.
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.