Lorenzini foundation Centro studi Lorenzini foundation Centro studi

GENDER EFFECT ON NEUROANATOMICAL VOLUME

The present study investigated the effects of age, gender, and age-by-gender interactions on 18 neu-roanatomical volumes in 861 normal subjects aged 24–84 years. All subjects underwent magnetic resonance scanning at 3.0 Tesla and 18 neuroanatomical volumes were measured. Differences in volumes of neuroanatomical structures were tested using analysis of covariance with intracranial volume-normalized volume as the dependent variable, and independent variables of age and sex. The volumes of cerebral cortex, cerebellar white matter, thalamus proper, putamen, pallidum, hippocampus, accumbens area, ventral, and brainstem were larger in females compared with males. The volumes of lateral ventricle, inferior lateral ventricle, 3rd ventricle, 4th ventricle were larger in males compared with females. The authors found no significant age by gender interaction for any neuroanatomical volume. This result suggests that there is no gender difference in the aging process of brain neuroanatomical volumes.