Sex differences in prefrontal cortical brain activity during fMRI of auditory verbal working memory.

Abstract

Functional imaging studies of sex effects in working memory (WMEM) are few, despite significant normal sex differences in brain regions implicated in WMEM. This functional MRI (fMRI) study tested for sex effects in an auditory verbal WMEM task in prefrontal, parietal, cingulate, and insula regions. Fourteen healthy, right-handed community subjects were comparable between the sexes, including on WMEM performance. Per statistical parametric mapping, women exhibited greater signal intensity changes in middle, inferior, and orbital prefrontal cortices than men (corrected for multiple comparisons). A test of mixed-sex groups, comparable on performance, showed no significant differences in the hypothesized regions, providing evidence for discriminant validity for significant sex differences. The findings suggest that combining men and women in fMRI studies of cognition may obscure or bias results.

Neuroanatomic substrates of sex differences in language dysfunction in schizophrenia: A pilot study

“…In contrast, among females (patients versus normal comparisons), greater reliance on temporal cortical regions, particularly right HG and left PT, suggests relative prominence of cortical involvement in language among women with schizophrenia. This, together with a more prominent left (vs. right) hemisphere (i.e., PT, HG, HIPP) contribution across domains in males, is consistent with research implicating sexually differentiated neuroanatomic organization of language (Baxter et al 2003;Goldstein et al 2005;Goldstein et al 2001;Harasty et al 1997;Kansaku et al 2000;Pugh et al 1997;Schlaepfer et al 1995;Shaywitz et al 1995). In fact, the positive association of PT asymmetry with semantics and grammar among male patients versus an inverse association of PT asymmetry with semantics in male controls also suggests a possible laterality effect on language processing among males.…”

“…Neuroimaging literature provides evidence of normal sex differences in region-specific structural brain volumes (Goldstein et al 2001;Harasty et al 1997;Schlaepfer et al 1995) and function (Baxter et al 2003;Goldstein et al 2005;Kansaku et al 2000;Pugh et al 1997;Shaywitz et al 1995) that implicates sex differences in the neuroanatomic organization of language. Specifically, superior temporal gyrus (STG) [including planum temporale (PT)] and inferior frontal gyrus [Broca's area (BA)] tend to be larger in women than men relative to cerebrum size (Goldstein et al 2001;Harasty et al 1997).…”

“…Specifically, superior temporal gyrus (STG) [including planum temporale (PT)] and inferior frontal gyrus [Broca's area (BA)] tend to be larger in women than men relative to cerebrum size (Goldstein et al 2001;Harasty et al 1997). In some studies, activation is more strongly left lateralized in men particularly in posterior language areas, whereas women show greater right or bilateral representation (Baxter et al 2003;Goldstein et al 2005;Pugh et al 1997). Conversely, a meta-analysis aimed at assessing sex differences in bilateral representation of language in the brain based on functional imaging studies of healthy individuals suggested absence of sexually differentiated language lateralization, in general, with differences possibly on particular tasks (Sommer et al 2004).…”

“…Conversely, a meta-analysis aimed at assessing sex differences in bilateral representation of language in the brain based on functional imaging studies of healthy individuals suggested absence of sexually differentiated language lateralization, in general, with differences possibly on particular tasks (Sommer et al 2004). Further, during auditory verbal working memory, women showed greater signal intensity changes in bilateral prefrontal regions than men, in whom activations were more likely present in one hemisphere (Goldstein et al 2005).…”

Neural Correlates of Impulse Control During Stop Signal Inhibition in Cocaine-Dependent Men

“…Men and women demonstrate important differences in their drug using behaviors and in their clinical profiles of SUD (Brady and Randall, 1999;Sinha and Rounsaville, 2002). Furthermore, significant sex differences in brain responses have also been demonstrated in both healthy individuals and patients with SUDs (Adinoff et al, 2006;Goldstein et al, 2005;Kim et al, 2005;Li et al, 2005aLi et al, , b, 2006bWager et al, 2003). In particular, women appear to involve multiple neural processes during stop signal inhibition, such that an increased number of subjects and perhaps an alternative experimental design would be required to examine altered frontal processes in cocaine dependent, compared to healthy control (HC), females (Li et al, 2006b).…”