Department of Radiology, Shanghai Children's Hospital, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, 200062, China.
Department of Instrument Science and Engineering, School of EIEE, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, 200240, China.
Brain Topogr. 2021 May;34(3):257-268. doi: 10.1007/s10548-021-00823-7. Epub 2021 Feb 25.
It is well known that there exist great differences in human brain anatomy and functions between males and females. With the development of noninvasive neuroimaging techniques, the sex differences in adult human brain have been well studied in some researches. However, the sexual dimorphism of human brain anatomy and functions has not been sufficiently described during the developmental period of early childhood brain when the sex differences emerge in behavior. This study was to identify specific patterns of the sexual dimorphism in developing brain structure of early childhood using multimodal brain image analysis. We have performed a multivariate and data-driven analysis by combining multiple neuroimaging technologies including the 3D T1-weighted structural MR images (sMRI) and diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) in a prospective cohort of 188 children (128 males and 60 females) between the ages of 0 and 15. First, the brain images were segmented into 90 regions of interest (ROIs) based on the AAL template to extract the ROI volume and connectivity features. Then, the individual multimodal imaging biomarkers were identified associated with the sex differences. Finally, the selected features from multi-modality neuroimages were combined using multi-kernel support vector machine for classifications of male or female. The method achieved sex classification accuracy 72% for the children between the ages of 0 and 15. And the volumes of right precuneus and right postcentral were more related to sexual dimorphism of developing brain structure than those of other regions in sMRI (p < 0.002). In DTI, the connections between right middle occipital gyrus and right inferior occipital gyrus, between left superior marginal gyrus and left middle temporal gyrus, and between right triangle inferior frontal gyrus and right putamen are also more relevant to the sexual dimorphism than others (p < 0.005). The brain regions and connections related to the sexual differences were identified with sMRI and DTI in early developing brain structure by using the multimodal image analysis. And these sexually dimorphic patterns of brain may be related to the observed sex differences in developing childhood brain structure and connectivity.
众所周知，男性和女性的大脑解剖结构和功能存在很大差异。随着非侵入性神经影像学技术的发展，一些研究已经很好地研究了成年人大脑的性别差异。然而，在行为出现性别差异的幼儿大脑发育早期，人类大脑解剖结构和功能的性别二态性尚未得到充分描述。本研究旨在使用多模态脑图像分析来确定幼儿期大脑发育过程中结构性别二态性的特定模式。我们对 188 名年龄在 0 至 15 岁的儿童（男 128 名，女 60 名）进行了前瞻性队列研究，通过结合包括 3D T1 加权结构磁共振成像（sMRI）和弥散张量成像（DTI）在内的多种神经影像学技术进行了多元和数据驱动的分析。首先，根据 AAL 模板将脑图像分割成 90 个感兴趣区（ROI），以提取 ROI 体积和连通性特征。然后，确定与性别差异相关的个体多模态成像生物标志物。最后，使用多核支持向量机对多模态神经图像中的选定特征进行组合，以对男性或女性进行分类。该方法对 0 至 15 岁儿童的性别分类准确率为 72%。与 sMRI 中其他区域相比，右楔前叶和右中央后回的体积与大脑结构发育的性别二态性更相关（p<0.002）。在 DTI 中，右中枕叶和右下枕叶之间、左优势缘回和左中颞叶之间以及右三角额下回和右壳核之间的连接也比其他连接更与性别二态性相关（p<0.005）。使用多模态图像分析，在早期发育的大脑结构中，通过 sMRI 和 DTI 确定了与性别差异相关的大脑区域和连接。这些大脑的性别二态模式可能与发育中儿童大脑结构和连接的观察到的性别差异有关。
