3.3. Brain lobes
Cerebral lobes show different growth rates during the first weeks of
life in both sexes (Gilmore JH et al., 2018). The fastest growth rate is
exhibited by the frontal lobe (4.44 ml/week), followed by the parietal
lobes (2.93 ml/week), temporal lobes (2.29 ml/week), occipital lobes
(2.40 ml/week), and lastly the limbic regions (0.58 ml/week) (Nishida M
et al., 2006). The frontal and temporal lobes continue their growth
during the first two years after birth with significant growth of the
frontal lobe over the temporal lobes (Matsuzawa J et al., 2001). A
significant sex difference was found in the total volume of frontal and
temporal lobes in infants where 2-5 weeks-old males had greater volumes,
while females of the same age had greater volumes of the left parietal
and right temporal lobes (Lehtola SJ et al., 2019). Moreover, male
infants showed a greater length of the right parietal and right
occipital lobes by 12.2% and 16.4% respectively compared to female
infants (Baibakov SE and Fedorov VP, 2010). Gilmore et al. reported
significant differences in the growth pattern of the cortical lobes with
the occipital and parietal regions growing significantly faster than the
prefrontal region (Gilmore JH et al., 2007) Furthermore, this study
demonstrated that the brains of neonate females present more asymmetry
in both regions compared to males (Gilmore JH et al., 2007).