New research links brain microstructure to gender differences in mental health

A team of neuroscientists and behavioral experts from several institutions in the US, in collaboration with a colleague from New Zealand and another from Canada, has discovered differences between the structure of male and female brains in areas related to decision-making, memory processing and managing emotions.

In their study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, The group compared more than 1,000 brain scans to better understand why men and women are more susceptible to certain types of brain diseases.

Previous research has shown that male babies are three times more likely to be diagnosed with autism as they grow older than female babies – they are also twice as likely to be diagnosed with ADHD. On the other hand, female babies are almost twice as likely to be diagnosed with anxiety or mood disorders later in life than boys.

Mental health specialists have wondered for years why there are differences, and many suspect it’s because of physical brain differences between the sexes. The research team believes they’ve found evidence for such differences.

To uncover potential gender differences in the brain, the researchers turned their attention to subcortical gray matter regions that previous researchers have linked to mental health, including the amygdala and thalamus. They then analyzed MRI scans of 1,065 male and female brains, looking for differences in the brain’s microstructure, such as the way cells are concentrated, their arrangement, or even their physical characteristics.

The research team found what they describe as “large, sex-related differences in microstructure.” They noted that such changes were still evident after controlling for age and the relative size of the brains studied. They also found diffusion metrics in the amygdala and thalamus that they believe may be associated with mental disorders such as anxiety, ADHD, social skills problems and depression.

They argue that further research into diffusion MRI images could provide more insight into gender-based brain disorders.

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