title: Gender effects on callosal thickness in scaled and unscaled space.
abstract: Some empirical data suggest that sexual dimorphisms in callosal morphology exist, but findings are not consistently replicated across laboratories. We applied novel computational surface-based methods to encode callosal thickness at high spatial resolution. We further examined whether callosal thickness and related gender effects are influenced by brain size adjustments achieved through data scaling. Significant gender differences were absent in scaled data, and women showed no regional thickness increases compared with men (in either scaled or unscaled data). In unscaled data, men exhibited significantly greater callosal thickness in a number of regions that may be attributable to larger brain dimensions in men. Alternatively, given their regional specificity, the observed differences in unscaled callosal thickness may contribute to gender-specific cognition and behavior.
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Neuro Imaging, Department of Neurology, UCLA School of Medicine, Los Angeles, California 90095-7334, USA.
authors.forename: Eileen
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Luders
authors.forename: Katherine L
authors.initials: KL
authors.lastname: Narr
authors.forename: Eran
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Zaidel
authors.forename: Paul M
authors.initials: PM
authors.lastname: Thompson
authors.forename: Arthur W
authors.initials: AW
authors.lastname: Toga
mesh_terms: D003337:Corpus Callosum / Q000033:anatomy & histology*; D005260:Female; D007839:Functional Laterality; D006801:Humans; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D012727:Sex Characteristics