Neuroscience of sex differences

The neuroscience of sex differences is the study of characteristics that separate brains of different sexes. Psychological sex differences are generally thought to reflect the interaction of genes, hormones, and social learning on brain development throughout the lifespan.

A 2021 meta-synthesis led by Lise Eliot found that sex accounted for less than 1% of the brain's structure or laterality, finding large group-level differences only in total brain volume. A subsequent 2021 study led by Camille Michèle Williams contradicted Eliot's conclusions, finding that sex differences in total brain volume are not accounted for merely by sex differences in height, and that once global brain size is taken into account, there remain numerous regional sex differences in both directions. In 2022 Alex DeCasien analyzed the studies from both Eliot and Williams, concluding that "The human brain shows highly reproducible sex differences in regional brain anatomy above and beyond sex differences in overall brain size" and that these differences are of a "small-moderate effect size." In 2024 Eliot responded by showing that those small-moderate differences have not reproduced across 6 large recent studies, including Williams et al., and concluding that species-wide regional brain sex differences have not been found to exist in humans.

An earlier review from 2006 and meta-analysis from 2014 stated that male and female brains cannot always be assumed to be identical from either structural or functional perspective, calling them sexually dimorphic, a term that Williams, DeCasien and Eliot agree does not accurately describe the human brain.

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