The Effect of Sex Differences on Event-Related Potentials in Young Adults

Abstract

Female/male cognitive differences have been studied for some time; however, such differences in Turkish population is unknown. Evoked potentials (EPs) of the brain have been applied as an index of information processing in a wide variety of normal and cognitive impaired subjects. Scalp event-related potentials (ERP) evoked by auditory stimuli were recorded in 20 male and 18 female neurologically and audiologically normal young Turkish subjects of 18-25 years (Av. 20.6) of age. Standard auditory "Oddball" paradigm involving simple discrimination task of concentrating on infrequent (target) stimulus and ignoring frequent (non-target) stimulus was employed. EEG activity was recorded at the Fz, Cz, Pz and Oz electrode sites of the 10-20 system using Ag/AgCl electrodes. Wave forms were collected and averaged off-line by a Pentium 100 computer, which also controlled the stimulus presentation. In general, significant main effects of gender and electrode site on evoked potential components were found. The interpeak amplitudes N1-P2 and N2-P3 were higher in the male subjects than in the female subjects at Cz. N2-P3 were higher in the male subjects than in the female subjects at Oz. The latencies of N1, P2, N2, P3 components were not different between both sex. For both sexes we found that N1-P2 amplitude was higher at Fz and Cz than Pz and Oz. N2-P3 amplitude was higher at Fz than Oz for only female subject. In male subjects, latency of N2 was longer at Fz than Oz. There were no significant differences in the latencies of N1, P2, and P3 components between electrode sites in both sexes. We suggest that ERP components could be affected by sex, electrode site, and cognitive performance.

Attentional, emotional and hormonal data in subjects of different ages

“…Differences have been observed in spatial abilities in which males outperform females (Nyborg 1994) and they exist in the profile of the event-related potentials (Golgeli et al 1999), in the interaction of emotional factors with memory and hemispheric lateralization (Sinton 1981). In the present experiment, sex differences in the attentional tests were observed only for alert, working memory and the number of errors, with males performing better than females.…”

Association Study of a Functional MAOA-uVNTR Gene Polymorphism and Cognitive Function in Healthy Females

“…Second, another possible explanation for our negative fi ndings is that the sample consisted entirely of female subjects without psychiatric disease. Our negative fi ndings might apply primarily to healthy females, because P300 components may be associated with sex [21] or a diseased state [12] , and WCST is affected by neuropsychiatric illness as well. Previous Western studies have found an association of the dopaminergic receptor D 2 gene Taq I A polymorphism and the P3 component in children of alcoholics or neuropsychiatric patients [22][23][24] .…”

Utility of P300 auditory event related potential latency in detecting cognitive dysfunction in growth hormone (GH) deficient patients with Sheehan's syndrome and effects of GH replacement therapy

“…In all patients, the P300 recordings were taken before breakfast (at 0830 h) after an optimal overnight sleep. All measurements were performed by the same physiologist at the Department of Physiology Brain Dynamics Center and the physiologist was unaware of the patients' treatment status (18,19).…”