No abstract

Males typically outperform females on spatial tasks, beginning early in life and continuing into adulthood. This study aimed to characterize age and sex differences in human spatial ability using a virtual Water Maze Task (vWMT), which is based on the classic Morris water maze spatial navigation task used in rodents. Performance on the vWMT and on a task assessing visuospatial perception, Mental Rotations Test (MRT), was examined in 33 adolescents and 39 emerging adults. For the vWMT, significant effects of age and sex were observed for path length in the target region (narrower spatial sampling), and heading error, with emerging adults performing better than adolescents, and an overall male advantage. For the MRT, males scored higher than females, but only in emerging adulthood. Overall, sex differences in visuospatial perception (MRT) emerge differently from those observed on a classic navigation task, with age and sex-specific superior vWMT performance likely related to the use of more efficient strategies. Importantly, these results extend the developmental timeline of spatial ability characterization to include adolescent males and females performing a virtual version of the classic vWMT.

Background: Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is associated with markers of accelerated aging. Estimates of brain age, compared to chronological age, may clarify the effects of PTSD on the brain and may inform treatment approaches targeting the neurobiology of aging in the context of PTSD. Method: Adult subjects (N = 2229; 56.2% male) aged 18-69 years (mean = 35.6, SD = 11.0) from 21 ENIGMA-PGC PTSD sites underwent T1-weighted brain structural magnetic resonance imaging, and PTSD assessment (PTSD+, n = 884). Previously trained voxel-wise (brainageR) and region-of-interest (BARACUS and PHOTON) machine learning pipelines were compared in a subset of control subjects (n = 386).Linear mixed effects models were conducted in the full sample (those with and without PTSD) to examine the effect of PTSD on brain predicted age difference (brain PAD; brain age − chronological age) controlling for chronological age, sex, and scan site.Results: BrainageR most accurately predicted brain age in a subset (n = 386) of con-