Sex differences in the connectome of the human brain according to an MR-tractography study

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Abstract

Background: The gender differences in the brain anatomy play an important role in planning and analysis in a lot of studies of the brain. Despite most animal studies being performed on the animals of only one sex, clinical studies generally enroll both males and females. Keeping this fact in mind, learning the gender differences in the white matter structure is important for those studies which deal with the white matter changes. These differences should be considered on the stages of planning and evaluation of the results.

Aims: Evaluation of the gender differences in the white matter pathways in healthy subjects.

Methods: 21 women and 20 men were enrolled in the study. All the subjects underwent MR-tractography, then the anatomic connectome was composed and the differences were evaluated using the tracts quantitative anisotropy (QA) evaluation.

Results: The gender differences were found in the white matter pathways with the prevalence of quantitative anisotropy in women, observed in a larger number of tracts than in those of men. QA was prevalent in a lot of fascicli that form major pathways in both groups: corpus callosum, dominant arcuate fasciclus, inferior fronto-occipital, inferior and superior right longitudinal pathways.

Conclusions: The white matter pathways in males and females are different not only within the major tracts but also for small fascicli that form tracts.

About the authors

Ilya L. Gubskiy

Federal Center for Cerebrovascular Pathology and Stroke

Author for correspondence.
Email: gubskiy.ilya@gmail.com
ORCID iD: 0000-0003-1726-6801
SPIN-code: 9181-3091
Scopus Author ID: 57214892235
ResearcherId: V-4376-2017

MD, PhD

Russian Federation, 117342, Moscow, Ostrovityanova Street, 1, Building 10

Ivan S. Gumin

Federal Center for Cerebrovascular Pathology and Stroke

Email: ivangumin@mail.ru
ORCID iD: 0000-0003-2360-3261
SPIN-code: 3454-2665

MD

Russian Federation, 117342, Moscow, Ostrovityanova Street, 1, Building 10

Maxim A. Shorikov

Federal Center for Cerebrovascular Pathology and Stroke

Email: mshorikov@gmail.com
ORCID iD: 0000-0003-3813-5608
SPIN-code: 1393-1437

MD

Russian Federation, 117342, Moscow, Ostrovityanova Street, 1, Building 10

Mikhail M. Beregov

Federal Center for Cerebrovascular Pathology and Stroke

Email: mik.beregov@gmail.com
ORCID iD: 0000-0003-1899-8131
SPIN-code: 2559-0307

MD

Russian Federation, 117342, Moscow, Ostrovityanova Street, 1, Building 10

Leonid V. Gubsky

Federal Center for Cerebrovascular Pathology and Stroke

Email: gubskii@mail.ru
ORCID iD: 0000-0002-7423-1229

MD, PhD, Professor

Russian Federation, 117342, Moscow, Ostrovityanova Street, 1, Building 10

Vladimir G. Lelyuk

Federal Center for Cerebrovascular Pathology and Stroke

Email: V.G.Lelyuk@gmail.com
ORCID iD: 0000-0002-9690-8325
SPIN-code: 1066-9840

MD, PhD, Professor

Russian Federation, 117342, Moscow, Ostrovityanova Street, 1, Building 10

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Supplementary files

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2. Fig. 1. MR tomograms (а) and 3D reconstructions (б) of the brain in various projections with the marked pathways, characterized by a higher index of quantitative anisotropy (QA), in men. The spatial direction of the revealed tracts is highlighted in color in panel (б).

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3. Fig. 2. MR tomograms (a) and 3D reconstructions (б) of the brain in various projections with the marked pathways, characterized by a higher index of quantitative anisotropy (QA), in women. The spatial direction of the revealed tracts is highlighted in color in panel (б).

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4. Fig. 3. 3D reconstructions of the brain and pathways with the highest index of quantitative anisotropy (QA), in men (red) and women (blue).

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5. Fig. 4. 3D visualization of the pathways of the corpus callosum with the highest index of quantitative anisotropy (QA), in men (red) and women (blue). The tracts prevailing for the two sexes, are displayed, which pass through different parts and fasciclе of the corpus callosum.

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Copyright (c) 2022 Gubskiy I.L., Gumin I.S., Shorikov M.A., Beregov M.M., Gubsky L.V., Lelyuk V.G.

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

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