Gender differences in brain processes during inhibition of manual movements programs

Abstract

Background: Motor response suppression can be regarded as an important aspect of the executive control, as a way of changing the behavioral pattern depending on the internal state or external factors. Purpose: The aim of our study was to examine whether there were differences in the ability of cortical inhibition of triggered motor program (in the context of the Stop-Signal task) between females and males. Methods: We examined differences in the patterns of event-related EEG synchronization/desynchronization (ERS/ERD) in young volunteers under the conditions of complete inhibition of the triggered motor program of a manual movement. Thirty-six male and thirty-eight female (ages of 19 to 21) took part in the tests. The ERS and ERD indices were estimated within the EEG frequency range 8-35 Hz in frontal, central and parietal leads. Results: In both gender groups, as a global pattern, the prevalence of connected phenomena with the EEG synchronization event in the range of α-activity of the EEG, apparently associated with inhibition of the running motor program was noted. Conclusion: Cortical electrical activity acquired certain specific features of the frequency-spatial organization, which could indicate the course of somewhat different brain processes of men and women.

Long-interval intracortical inhibition in primary motor cortex related to working memory in middle-aged adults

“…Furthermore, when we split the sample for biological sex, we observed that women presented subtly higher inhibition than men, which was not statistically significant. This result is in line with previous studies showing that inhibition, usually superior in women, could be influenced by different functional brain maturation of the inhibitory system (Rubia et al, 2013), variations of the brain areas activated (Bell et al, 2006;Li et al, 2006;Korzhyk et al, 2019), and ovarian hormones (Hosseini-Kamkar and Bruce Morton, 2014;Shibuya et al, 2016).…”

Event-related potentials during contralateral switching over motor programs in humans

“…The authors revealed comparative decrease in the ERS intensity with respect to the 9, 11, and 16 Hz oscillations in the fronto-central cortical regions and intensification of ERD at 11 and 16 Hz in parietal leads; relative intensification of ERS in the left central neocortical zone (11 Hz frequency), that in the right frontal and parietal zones (16 Hz frequency); and ERD for the frequencies of 19-20 Hz extensively developed in the neocortex (first of all, in the left hemisphere). In contrast to such data, the cortical activity of the female participants in the β1-band was lower in ERS EEG (15-16 Hz) and was marked by the development of than that of men (Korzhyk et al, 2019). The authors noted electrical processes in the cortex in the band of β2 activity (24-26, 30-31 Hz) among female participants ERG EEG as opposed to the registered ERD of males.…”

“…The second sound in stimulus pair had confirmation of the value or movement or its switching (Stop-Change). Each acoustic signal lasted 50 ms; the interval between stimulus pairs was 5.0 s long (Korzhyk et al, 2018(Korzhyk et al, , 2019. The ratio of the stimulus pairs with two low-frequency (600 Hz) tones and pairs with low-and highfrequency (600 and 1600 Hz) tones in the test series was 70/30%.…”

“…ERPs were recorded in the frontal (F3, F4), central (C3, C4), and parietal (Р3, Р4) leads. The choice of such leads is related to the published data (Haaland et al, 2000;Ioffe, 2003;Bai et al, 2005;Korzhyk et al, 2018Korzhyk et al, , 2019 that precisely these cortical areas are most significantly involved in processing of sensorimotor information and motor programming.…”

“…Gender, as a biological characteristic, stimulates different peculiarities of brain processes and, as a consequence, different behaviour of men and women. Some studies revealed a number of sex differences in brain activation (Lissek et at., 2007;Korzhyk et al, 2019). Women in general showed higher cortical activation than men during tapping with either hand, and they exhibited more ipsilateral activation in motortask-relevant regions than men, in particular during finger tapping with the dominant hand (Lissek et al, 2007).…”