Outcome after acute ischemic stroke is linked to sex-specific lesion patterns

Anna K. Bonkhoff, Markus D. Schirmer, Martin Bretzner, Sungmin Hong, Robert W. Regenhardt, Mikael Brudfors, Kathleen L. Donahue, Marco J. Nardin, Adrian V. Dalca, Anne-Katrin Giese, Mark R. Etherton, Brandon L. Hancock, Steven J. T. Mocking, Elissa C. McIntosh, John Attia, Oscar R. Benavente, Stephen Bevan, John W. Cole, Amanda Donatti, Christoph J. GriessenauerLaura Heitsch, Lukas Holmegaard, Katarina Jood, Jordi Jimenez-Conde, Steven J. Kittner, Robin Lemmens, Christopher R. Levi, Caitrin W. McDonough, James F. Meschia, Chia-Ling Phuah, Arndt Rolfs, Stefan Ropele, Jonathan Rosand, Jaume Roquer, Tatjana Rundek, Ralph L. Sacco, Reinhold Schmidt, Pankaj Sharma, Agnieszka Slowik, Martin Söderholm, Alessandro Sousa, Tara M. Stanne, Daniel Strbian, Turgut Tatlisumak, Vincent Thijs, Achala Vagal, Johan Wasselius, Daniel Woo, Ramin Zand, Patrick F. McArdle, Bradford B. Worrall, Christina Jern, Arne G. Lindgren, Jane Maguire, Danilo Bzdok, Ona Wu, Natalia S. Rost

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

Acute ischemic stroke affects men and women differently. In particular, women are often reported to experience higher acute stroke severity than men. We derived a low-dimensional representation of anatomical stroke lesions and designed a Bayesian hierarchical modeling framework tailored to estimate possible sex differences in lesion patterns linked to acute stroke severity (National Institute of Health Stroke Scale). This framework was developed in 555 patients (38% female). Findings were validated in an independent cohort (n = 503, 41% female). Here, we show brain lesions in regions subserving motor and language functions help explain stroke severity in both men and women, however more widespread lesion patterns are relevant in female patients. Higher stroke severity in women, but not men, is associated with left hemisphere lesions in the vicinity of the posterior circulation. Our results suggest there are sex-specific functional cerebral asymmetries that may be important for future investigations of sex-stratified approaches to management of acute ischemic stroke.
Original languageEnglish
Article number3289
Number of pages14
JournalNature Communications
Volume12
Issue number1
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2021

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