The increasing divergences in male and female physiology during adolescence are observed in sex-based differentiation of brain structure. Male children and adolescents show larger overall brain volumes (Caviness et al. 1996; Reiss et al. 1996), and proportionally larger amygdala and globus pallidus sizes, while females demonstrate larger caudate nuclei and cingulate gyrus volumes (Caviness et al. 1996; Giedd et al. 1997; Wilke et al. 2007). Although cortical and subcortical grey matter volumes typically peak 1–2 years earlier in females than males (Lenroot and Giedd 2006), male children and adolescents show more prominent grey matter reductions and white matter volume increases with age than do females (Blanton et al. 2004; De Bellis et al. 2001).
