Several brain disorders exhibit sex differences in onset, presentation, and prevalence. Increased understanding of the neurobiology of sex-based differences in variability across the lifespan can provide insight into both disease vulnerability and resilience. In n = 3069 participants, from 8 to 95 years of age, we found widespread greater variability in males compared with females in cortical surface area and global and subcortical volumes for discrete brain regions. In contrast, variance in cortical thickness was similar for males and females. These findings were supported by multivariate analysis accounting for structural covariance, and present and stable across the lifespan. Additionally, we examined variability among brain regions by sex. We found significant age-by-sex interactions across neuroimaging metrics, whereby in very early life males had reduced among-region variability compared with females, while in very late life this was reversed. Overall, our findings of greater regional variability, but less among-region variability in males in early life may aid our understanding of sex-based risk for neurodevelopmental disorders. In contrast, our findings in late life may provide a potential sex-based risk mechanism for dementia.

中文翻译：

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整个生命周期中大脑结构变异性的性别差异。


一些脑部疾病在发病、表现和患病率方面表现出性别差异。加深对整个生命周期中基于性别的变异性差异的神经生物学的了解，可以深入了解疾病的脆弱性和恢复力。在 3069 名年龄从 8 岁到 95 岁的参与者中，我们发现与女性相比，男性在皮质表面积以及离散大脑区域的整体和皮质下体积方面存在更大的变异性。相比之下，男性和女性的皮质厚度差异相似。这些发现得到了解释结构协方差的多变量分析的支持，并且在整个生命周期中都存在且稳定。此外，我们还检查了不同性别的大脑区域之间的差异。我们发现神经影像学指标中存在显着的年龄与性别相互作用，即在生命的早期，与女性相比，男性的区域间变异性降低，而在生命的晚期，这种情况发生了逆转。总体而言，我们发现男性早年的区域变异性较大，但区域间变异性较小，这可能有助于我们了解基于性别的神经发育障碍风险。相比之下，我们在晚年的发现可能为痴呆症提供了一种潜在的基于性别的风险机制。