New GUSTO study suggests boys and girls may develop depressive symptoms differently
Published: 04 Jun 2026
A new study led by the A*STAR Institute for Human Development and Potential (A*STAR IHDP) has found that patterns of brain development during early childhood may be linked to depressive symptoms in adolescence, and that these associations differ between boys and girls.
Published in Molecular Psychiatry, the study was conducted in collaboration with researchers from the KK Women’s and Children’s Hospital (KKH), National University Health System (NUHS), Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore (NUS Medicine), and McGill University. It drew on data from the Growing Up in Singapore Towards healthy Outcomes (GUSTO) birth cohort, a longitudinal study tracking over 1,200 Singaporean mothers and their children from pregnancy through childhood.
Researchers analysed 917 brain scans from 549 children, collected when they were aged 4.5, 6 and 7.5. Using longitudinal neuroimaging, they tracked changes in how different parts of the brain connect and work together over time.
Between ages 4.5 and 6, girls showed a faster rate of change in brain development than boys, suggesting that the pace of early brain development may differ by sex.
The researchers then examined how the childhood brain-development patterns were associated with depressive symptoms at age 13, alongside other mental health-related measures collected between ages 10 to 12 years.
Further analysis showed that different parts of the brain were associated with different types of later depressive symptoms in boys and girls. In girls, changes in brain regions linked to emotional processing were associated with symptoms such as low mood and poor self-esteem. In boys, changes in other brain regions were associated with symptoms such as tiredness and a sense of ineffectiveness.
Together, these findings suggest that similar overall depressive symptoms in adolescence may emerge through different developmental pathways in boys and girls. They do not mean that depression can be predicted from a single brain scan, or that all boys and girls follow the same path. Instead, they point to the need for future research to consider how risk may develop differently across sexes.
View the press release here.
