10,000 Social Brains: Sex Differentiation in Human Brain Anatomy

Hannah Kiesow (1) , Robin I M Dunbar (2) , Joseph W Kable (3) , Tobias Kalenscher (4) , Kai Vogeley (5) , Leonhard Schilbach (6) , Andre F Marquand (7) , Thomas V Wiecki (8) , Danilo Bzdok (9, 10, 11)

1 UKA - Universitätsklinikum RWTH Aachen - University Hospital Aachen [Aachen, Germany]
2 University of Oxford
3 University of Pennsylvania
4 Heinrich Heine Universität Düsseldorf = Heinrich Heine University [Düsseldorf]
5 University Hospital of Cologne [Cologne]
6 Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry
7 Radboud University Medical Center [Nijmegen]
8 Quantopian Inc [Boston]
9 Montreal Neurological Hospital
10 PARIETAL - Modelling brain structure, function and variability based on high-field MRI data
11 MILA - Montreal Institute for Learning Algorithms [Montréal]

In human and non-human primates, sex differences typically explain much interindividual variability. Male and female behaviors may have played unique roles in the likely co-evolution of increasing brain volume and more complex social dynamics. To explore possible divergence in social brain morphology between men and women living in different social environments, we applied probabilistic generative modeling to ~10,000 UK Biobank participants. We observed strong volume effects especially in the limbic system, but also in regions of the sensory, intermediate and higher association networks. Sex-specific brain volume effects in the limbic system were linked to the frequency and intensity of social contact, such as indexed by loneliness, household size, and social support. Across the processing hierarchy of neural networks, different conditions for social interplay may resonate in and be influenced by brain anatomy in sex-dependent ways. One-sentence teaser (125 characters max.) Population variability in social lifestyle is reflected in brain morphology in sex-dependent ways 2

Domaines: Sciences du Vivant [q-bio]

Hannah Kiesow, Robin I M Dunbar, Joseph W Kable, Tobias Kalenscher, Kai Vogeley, et al.. 10,000 Social Brains: Sex Differentiation in Human Brain Anatomy. Annales Archéologiques Arabes Syriennes, 2020. ⟨hal-02511540⟩