Analysis of Human Brain Structure Reveals that the Brain "Types" Typical of Males Are Also Typical of Females, and Vice Versa.

ABSTRACT: Findings of average differences between females and males in the structure of specific brain regions are often interpreted as indicating that the typical male brain is different from the typical female brain. An alternative interpretation is that the brain types typical of females are also typical of males, and sex differences exist only in the frequency of rare brain types. Here we contrasted the two hypotheses by analyzing the structure of 2176 human brains using three analytical approaches. An anomaly detection analysis showed that brains from females are almost as likely to be classified as "normal male brains," as brains from males are, and vice versa. Unsupervised clustering algorithms revealed that common brain "types" are similarly common in females and in males and that a male and

SUBMITTER: Joel D 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6204758 | biostudies-literature | 2018

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature