Kiran Kumar Seunarine1, Jon Clayden1,
Sebastian Jentschke1, Monica Muoz1,2, Janine Cooper1,
Martin J. Chadwick1,3, Tina Banks4, Faraneh
Vargha-Khadem1, Chris A. Clark1
1Institute of Child Health,
University College London, London, United Kingdom; 2School of
Medicine, University of Castilla-La Mancha, Albacete, Spain; 3Institute
of Neurology, University College London, London, United Kingdom; 4Radiology
Department, Great Ormund Street Hospital, London, United Kingdom
There are widespread structural changes in the brain as it matures throughout childhood and into early adulthood. Several studies have investigated the effect of age and gender on white-matter development using diffusion MRI but they typically use a large age range. This work focusses on investigating sexual dimorphism in pre-adolescence (children aged 8-13 years) using tract-based spatial statistics (TBSS). Results show significant (p<0.05) correlations between diffusion tensor measures and age in males in this age range but not females. This suggests a different course of white-matter development in males and females in the 8-13 year age range.