Hemispheric Asymmetry Gender Differences in Preadolescent Children

Abstract

Background: Investigating various postnatal parameters of cerebral hemispheres is of great practical value.Objective: To study gender differences in hemispheric parameters and interhemispheric interactions in preadolescent children.Materials and methods: The retrospective study assessed archived brain magnetic resonance images of 60 eight-year-old boys and 60 eight-year-old girls. The analyzed parameters were as follows: 1) hemispheric length; 2) hemispheric width; 3) hemispheric height; 4) width-longitudinal index of a hemisphere; 5) altitude-longitudinal index of a hemisphere; 6) length of frontal lobes; 7) length of parietal lobes; 8) length of occipital lobes; 9) length of temporal lobes. Quantitative indicators were assessed for normal distribution using the Kolmogorov–Smirnov test. Source data were accumulated and arranged in Microsoft Excel 2016 spreadsheets. Statistica 10.0 was used for the statistical analysis. The results were considered statistically significant with P < 0.05.Results: The analysis of cephalometric indicators suggests sex-related variation in the cerebral hemispheres. Based on the obtained data we can identify morphometric parameters of interhemispheric variability that may act as one of the morphometric criteria for the brain asymmetry. The study results can be widely used for neuroimaging.Conclusions: We determined cephalometric reference values for various cerebral hemispheres parts in preadolescent children.

Keywords

• sex differences
• preadolescence
• cerebral hemispheres