Country-level gender inequality is associated with structural differences in the brains of women and men

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Arquivos
art_ZUGMAN_Countrylevel_gender_inequality_is_associated_with_structural_differences_2023.PDF (2.17 MB)
Citações na Scopus
9
Tipo de produção
article
Data de publicação
2023
DOI
Scopus
Web of Science
PubMed
Título da Revista
ISSN da Revista
Título do Volume
Editora
NATL ACAD SCIENCES
Autores
ZUGMAN, Andre
ALLIENDE, Luz Maria
MEDEL, Vicente
BETHLEHEM, Richard A. I.
SEIDLITZ, Jakob
RINGLEIN, Grace
ARANGO, Celso
ARNATKEVICIUTE, Aurina
ASMAL, Laila
BELLGROVE, Mark
Citação
PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, v.120, n.20, article ID e2218782120, 6p, 2023
Projetos de Pesquisa
Unidades Organizacionais
Fascículo
Resumo
Gender inequality across the world has been associated with a higher risk to mental health problems and lower academic achievement in women compared to men. We also know that the brain is shaped by nurturing and adverse socio-environmental experiences. Therefore, unequal exposure to harsher conditions for women compared to men in gender-unequal countries might be reflected in differences in their brain structure, and this could be the neural mechanism partly explaining women's worse outcomes in gender-unequal countries. We examined this through a random-effects meta-analysis on cortical thickness and surface area differences between adult healthy men and women, including a meta-regression in which country-level gender inequality acted as an explanatory variable for the observed differences. A total of 139 samples from 29 different countries, totaling 7,876 MRI scans, were included. Thickness of the right hemisphere, and particularly the right caudal anterior cingulate, right medial orbitofrontal, and left lateral occipital cortex, presented no differences or even thicker regional cortices in women compared to men in gender-equal countries, reversing to thinner cortices in countries with greater gender inequality. These results point to the potentially hazardous effect of gender inequality on women's brains and provide initial evidence for neuroscience-informed policies for gender equality.
Palavras-chave
gender inequality, structural brain MRI, sex differences
URI
https://observatorio.fm.usp.br/handle/OPI/56179
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Coleções
Artigos e Materiais de Revistas Científicas - FM/MPS
Artigos e Materiais de Revistas Científicas - LIM/21
Artigos e Materiais de Revistas Científicas - ODS/05
Artigos e Materiais de Revistas Científicas - ODS/10