Gonadal and sex chromosomal contributions to sex differences in mammalian brain organization

Abstract

Sex differences in brain development may contribute to well-known sex differences in behavior and neuropsychiatric risk - making it important to comprehensively map and mechanistically annotate normative sex differences in brain organization. Most sex differences in mammalian brain organization have previously been attributed to differential effects of gonadal hormones based on outcomes from rodent endocrine manipulations at canonical subcortical foci of male-biased brain volume. However, a systematic quantification of both gonadal and sex chromosome dosage (SCD) contributions across all regions of sex-biased brain volume has been lacking. Here, using structural neuroimaging scans from wild-type (n=670) and transgenic mice that dissociate gonadal, X-, and Y-chromosome effects (n=181), we show that: many more brain regions are volumetrically sex-biased than previously recognized; gonadal effects dominate throughout this expanded map of sex differences; several regions also show prominent SCD contributions to anatomical sex differences, which can both reinforce or counteract gonadal effects in a regionally specific manner. Targeted single nucleus RNA sequencing at a region of female-biased cerebellar volume reveals that combined gonadal and SCD effects also drive sex-biased cellular gene expression. These findings revise our understanding of the spatial distribution and causal basis of sex-differences in the mammalian brain, illuminating a key axis of biological variation in health and disease.