Insight into brain sex differences of typically developed infants and brain pathologies: A systematic review.

ABSTRACT

The continually advancing landscape of neuroscientific and imaging research has broadened our comprehension of sex differences encoded in the human brain, expanding from the hypothalamus and sexual behaviour to encompass the entire brain, including its diverse lobes, structures, and functions. However, less is known about sex differences in the brains of neonates and infants, despite their relevance to various sex-linked diseases that develop early in life. In this review, we provide a synopsis of the literature evidence on sex differences in the brains of neonates and infants at the morphological, structural and network levels. We also briefly overview the present evidence on the sex bias in some brain disorders affecting infants and neonates.