title: On the Effect of Sex on Prefrontal and Cerebellar Neurometabolites in Healthy Adults: An MRS Study.
abstract: In neuropsychiatric research, the aspects of sex have received increasing attention over the past decade. With regard to the neurometabolic differences in the prefrontal cortex and the cerebellum of both men and women, we performed a magnetic resonance spectroscopic (MRS) study of a large group of healthy subjects. For neurometabolic measurements, we used single-voxel proton MRS. The voxels of interest (VOI) were placed in the pregenual anterior cingulate cortex (pACC) and the left cerebellar hemisphere. Absolute quantification of creatine (Cre), total choline (t-Cho), glutamate and glutamine (Glx), N-acetylaspartate, and myo-inositol (mI) was performed. Thirty-three automatically matched ACCs and 31 cerebellar male-female pairs were statistically analyzed. We found no significant neurometabolic differences in the pACC region (Wilks' lambda: p = 0.657). In the left cerebellar region, we detected significant variations between the male and female groups (p = 0.001). Specifically, we detected significantly higher Cre (p = 0.005) and t-Cho (p = 0.000) levels in men. Additionally, males tended to have higher Glx and mI concentrations. This is the first study to report neurometabolic sex differences in the cerebellum. The effects of sexual hormones might have influenced our findings. Our data indicates the importance of adjusting for the confounding effects of sex in MRS studies.
authors.affiliation: Section for Experimental Neuropsychiatry, Department for Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, University Medical Center Freiburg Freiburg, Germany.
authors.forename: Dominique
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Endres
authors.affiliation: Section for Experimental Neuropsychiatry, Department for Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, University Medical Center Freiburg Freiburg, Germany.
authors.forename: Ludger
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Tebartz van Elst
authors.affiliation: Section for Experimental Neuropsychiatry, Department for Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, University Medical Center Freiburg Freiburg, Germany.
authors.forename: Bernd
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Feige
authors.affiliation: Section for Experimental Neuropsychiatry, Department for Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, University Medical Center Freiburg Freiburg, Germany.
authors.forename: Stephan
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Backenecker
authors.affiliation: Section for Experimental Neuropsychiatry, Department for Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, University Medical Center Freiburg Freiburg, Germany.
authors.forename: Kathrin
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Nickel
authors.affiliation: Department for Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Saarland University Medical Center Homburg, Germany.
authors.forename: Anna
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Bubl
authors.affiliation: Department for Radiology, Medical Physics, University Medical Center Freiburg Freiburg, Germany.
authors.forename: Thomas
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Lange
authors.affiliation: Department of Neuroradiology, University Medical Center Freiburg Freiburg, Germany.
authors.forename: Irina
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Mader
authors.affiliation: Section for Experimental Neuropsychiatry, Department for Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, University Medical Center Freiburg Freiburg, Germany.
authors.forename: Simon
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Maier
authors.affiliation: Section for Experimental Neuropsychiatry, Department for Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, University Medical Center Freiburg Freiburg, Germany.
authors.forename: Evgeniy
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Perlov
keywords: MR spectroscopy; cerebellum; choline; creatine; sex