Gender differences in the structural connectome of the teenage brain revealed by generalized q-sampling MRI

This study included 59 (i.e., 33 males and 26 females) age- and education-matched subjects (age range: 13 to 14years). The structural connectome was obtained by graph theoretical and network-based statistical (NBS) analyses. Our findings show that teenage male brains exhibit better intrahemispheric communication, and teenage female brains exhibit better interhemispheric communication. Our results also suggest that the network organization of teenage male brains is more local, more segregated, and more similar to small-world networks than teenage female brains. We conclude that the use of an MRI study with a GQI-based structural connectomic approach like ours presents novel insights into network-based systems of the brain and provides a new piece of the puzzle regarding gender differences.
Source: NeuroImage: Clinical - Category: Radiology Source Type: research