Gender Differences in Verbal and Visuospatial Working Memory Performance and Networks

Abstract

Background: Working memory (WM) has been a matter of intensive basic and clinical research for some decades now. The investigation of WM function and dysfunction may facilitate the understanding of both physiological and pathological processes in the human brain. Though WM paradigms are widely used in neuroscientific and psychiatric research, conclusive knowledge about potential moderating variables such as gender is still missing. Methods: We used functional magnetic resonance imaging to investigate the effects of gender on verbal and visuospatial WM maintenance tasks in a large and homogeneous sample of young healthy subjects. Results: We found significant gender effects on both the behavioral and neurofunctional level. Females exhibited disadvantages with a small effect size in both WM domains accompanied by stronger activations in a set of brain regions (including bilateral substantia nigra/ventral tegmental area and right Broca's area) independent of WM modality. As load and task difficulty effects have been shown for some of these regions, the stronger activations may reflect a slightly lower capacity of both WM domains in females. Males showed stronger bilateral intraparietal activations next to the precuneus which were specific for the visuospatial WM task. Activity in this specific region may be associated with visuospatial short-term memory capacity. Conclusion: These findings provide evidence for a slightly lower capacity in both WM modalities in females.

Gender differences in brain networks during verbal Sternberg tasks: A simultaneous near‐infrared spectroscopy and electro‐encephalography study

“…A recent fMRI study on Sternberg task obtained different results from ours and reported that women exhibited disadvantages with stronger activation compared to men . The main reason for the disagreement between this study and our study may be that the study restricted men and women using specific strategies refer to their instructions, while our experiment did not impose such restrictions so that participants could use their preferred strategies.…”

“…Few researches investigated gender differences in brain functions using Sternberg task . These studies were based on functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) observations of the blood‐oxygen‐level‐dependent signals.…”

Is sex an influential factor in type‐1 diabetes neurofunctional development? A preliminary study

“…Recent studies have used fMRI techniques to evaluate sex differences in young healthy subjects while performing verbal and VSWM tasks (Zilles et al, ). Their results showed that females exhibited disadvantages in both working memory domains accompanied by stronger brain activation patterns, which was interpreted as a reflection of a slightly lower working memory capacity.…”

Blood Alcohol Concentration-Related Lower Performance in Immediate Visual Memory and Working Memory in Adolescent Binge Drinkers

“…Gender differences in WM of young healthy subjects have been reported, indicating a male advantage in this memory, with females exhibiting disadvantages with a small effect size in both verbal and visuospatial WM (Zilles et al, 2016). This male advantage could be explained by activating effects of testosterone (Janowsky et al, 2000).…”

“…This male advantage could be explained by activating effects of testosterone (Janowsky et al, 2000). Nevertheless, age and specific task modulate the magnitude and direction of the effects (e.g., Zilles et al, 2016; Voyer et al, 2017). This kind of differences is not so clear in IVM.…”