Summary
A bioRxiv preprint reports sex-specific reference charts for 296 structural brain measures, built from imaging data from 59,915 healthy people aged from 266 days after conception to 100 years. The authors found differences in when measures reached peak milestones and reported improved prediction compared with charts that pooled sexes.
A bioRxiv preprint describes lifespan reference charts for 296 structural brain measures, built from imaging data from 59,915 healthy people. The dataset spans ages from 266 days after conception to 100 years. The authors report that brain-structure milestones occur at different times in males and females, and that charts built separately by sex predicted structural measures more accurately than sex-pooled references.
The study, posted on October 14, 2026, treats brain anatomy as a set of measures that change with age rather than as a single fixed pattern. Its charts cover global, cortical and subcortical features: measures of the brain as a whole, its outer layer and structures beneath it.
What the charts show
The researchers constructed separate lifespan charts for males and females using data from 29,760 males and 30,155 females. A brain chart is a reference model that describes how a measured feature varies across ages in a population. It can help place a measurement in context—for example, whether it is typical or unusually high or low for a person’s age and the reference group.
Across the 296 measures, the authors found widespread differences in maturational timing. In general, males reached peak milestones later than females. The timing and size of differences varied by measure, with different features showing divergence at different points in life. The findings therefore describe multiple age-dependent patterns, rather than one uniform difference between male and female brains.
The authors also compared these sex-specific charts with conventional references that pool males and females. They report that the separate models improved predictive accuracy and reduced the misestimation of individual deviations in healthy populations. That suggests the reference group used to interpret a structural measure can affect how unusual a value appears.
Relevance to neuropsychiatric research
The researchers applied the charts to data covering five neuropsychiatric conditions. They report that sex-specific models improved detection of extreme structural deviations and revealed both patterns shared across sexes and patterns that differed by sex.
This could help researchers describe anatomical variation in conditions more precisely, by comparing measurements with age- and sex-specific references. The work concerns structural neuroimaging measures; the reported charts are not, by themselves, measures of symptoms or cognitive ability.
The findings are from a preprint, and the abstract presents the overall results without numerical accuracy estimates or naming the five conditions. The reported comparisons are therefore best read as an early account of a potentially useful research reference, rather than as evidence that the charts are ready to guide individual diagnosis.