Sex differences in brain structures throughout the lifetime

he neuroanatomical characteristics of the brain exhibit variations between females and males, encompassing both healthy and pathological conditions. Bethlehem et al. (2022) recently developed a human brain chart based on Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) data from over 100,000 participants ranging in age from 115 days post-conception to 100 years [2]. This study discovered that males and females have significantly different brain tissue volumes throughout their lives and that these differences can also be seen in the brain growth patterns of people with psychiatric and neurologic conditions. Based on this growth chart trajectory, males have larger brain tissue volumes and more significant variance across MRI phenotypes, compared to females. It is critical to understand the effects of biological sex on brain development as it can significantly affect the physical and mental health of different psychiatric and neurologic patients.