Males and females differ in brain activation during cognitive tasks

Bell, Emily C.; Willson, Morgan C.; Wilman, Alan H.; Dave, Sanjay; Silverstone, Peter H.

doi:10.1016/j.neuroimage.2005.09.049

Cited by 256 publications

(185 citation statements)

References 51 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

161

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…Consistent with the present findings, metabolic decline has been documented in human imaging studies (20,21). Moreover, gender-dependent changes in cerebral blood flow and brain activity with aging (10,22), task performance (23)(24)(25), and memory (26,27) have been suggested in several studies.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 92%

Gene expression changes in the course of normal brain aging are sexually dimorphic

Berchtold¹,

Cribbs

Coleman

et al. 2008

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

550

548

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Gene expression profiles were assessed in the hippocampus, entorhinal cortex, superior-frontal gyrus, and postcentral gyrus across the lifespan of 55 cognitively intact individuals aged 20 -99 years. Perspectives on global gene changes that are associated with brain aging emerged, revealing two overarching concepts. First, different regions of the forebrain exhibited substantially different gene profile changes with age. For example, comparing equally powered groups, 5,029 probe sets were significantly altered with age in the superiorfrontal gyrus, compared with 1,110 in the entorhinal cortex. Prominent change occurred in the sixth to seventh decades across cortical regions, suggesting that this period is a critical transition point in brain aging, particularly in males. Second, clear gender differences in brain aging were evident, suggesting that the brain undergoes sexually dimorphic changes in gene expression not only in development but also in later life. Globally across all brain regions, males showed more gene change than females. Further, Gene Ontology analysis revealed that different categories of genes were predominantly affected in males vs. females. Notably, the male brain was characterized by global decreased catabolic and anabolic capacity with aging, with down-regulated genes heavily enriched in energy production and protein synthesis/transport categories. Increased immune activation was a prominent feature of aging in both sexes, with proportionally greater activation in the female brain. These data open opportunities to explore age-dependent changes in gene expression that set the balance between neurodegeneration and compensatory mechanisms in the brain and suggest that this balance is set differently in males and females, an intriguing idea.entorhinal cortex ͉ hippocampus ͉ microarray ͉ sex differences ͉ superior frontal gyrus A ging is associated with mild changes in cognitive capacity even in cognitively intact humans, including declines in memory and executive function that are associated with the hippocampus (HC) and frontal cortex. Paradoxically, these age-related changes in cognitive function are not well accounted for by corresponding age-related neuron loss and synaptic change in cortical or temporal structures. For example, despite reductions in cortical thickness, unbiased stereological assessment reveals that overall neuronal number in the human brain declines Ͻ10% over the age range of 20-90 years (1), and cortical neuron and synapse numbers are relatively maintained. Although the hilus of the HC does appear to undergo mild age-related neuron loss, other hippocampal subregions show increased dendritic and synaptic complexity with in-

show abstract

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 92%

Gene expression changes in the course of normal brain aging are sexually dimorphic

Berchtold¹,

Cribbs

Coleman

et al. 2008

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

550

548

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Bell et al [23], however, reported that males had a significantly greater mean activation than females in a covered word generation task. In explaining the identified gender difference, they reasoned that females would be expected to perform better on verbal tasks than males although they did not have performance data on this owing the nature of the task.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 95%

Brain Activities on fMRI Using the shiritori Task in Normal Subjects

et al. 2010

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Summary:Shiritori is a popular Japanese word chain game that resembles verbal fluency tasks used in Western countries. Recently, shiritori has been used to determine the dominant hemisphere for language and as a rehabilitation tool. However, there are few reports of neuroimaging during shiritori. We used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to conduct a detailed study of brain activities during shiritori and observed activation not only of the left inferior frontal gyrus (including the pars opecularis, the pars triangularis and the pars orbitalis), which is a language-related area, but also of the left superior and middle frontal gyri, the right pars orbitalis (inferior frontal gyrus), and the right cerebellar hemisphere. Shiritori is a useful tool for psychological study and rehabilitation. Key words

show abstract

“…It is known that boys and girls perform differently on cognitive tests (18,29). Many studies have used performance tasks such as PVT and other reaction time tasks to investigate the effect of sleep restriction in children (30,31).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Influence of gender on psychomotor vigilance task performance by adolescents

Beijamini

Silva

Peixoto

et al. 2008

Braz J Med Biol Res

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

During adolescence, the sleep phase delay associated with early school times increases daytime sleepiness and reduces psychomotor performance. Some studies have shown an effect of gender on psychomotor performance in adults and children. Males present faster reaction times (RT) compared with females. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the influence of gender on Palm psychomotor vigilance task (PVT) performance in adolescents. Thirty-four adolescents (19 girls, 13 to 16 years old) attending morning school classes of a public school in Curitiba, PR, Brazil, participated in the study. Sleep patterns were measured using actigraphy and sleepiness data were accessed with the Karolinska Sleepiness Scale (KSS). KSS and PVT measurements were collected at two times in the morning (8:00 and 11:00 h). The data were compared using one-way ANOVA, considering gender as a factor. ANOVA indicated that gender did not affect sleep patterns and subjective somnolence; however, a statistically significant effect of gender was detected for PVT performance. Boys presented faster RT (RT-PVT1: 345.51 ms, F = 6.08, P < 0.05; RT-PVT2: 343.30 ms, F = 6.35, P < 0.05) and fewer lapses (lapses-PVT1: 8.71, F = 4.45, P < 0.05; lapses-PVT2: 7.82, F = 7.06, P < 0.05) compared with girls (RT-PVT1: 402.96; ). These results showed that this effect of gender, already reported in adults and children, is also observed in adolescents. The influence of gender should be taken into account in studies that use Palm PVT to evaluate psychomotor performance in this age range.

show abstract

Males and females differ in brain activation during cognitive tasks

Cited by 256 publications

References 51 publications

Gene expression changes in the course of normal brain aging are sexually dimorphic

Gene expression changes in the course of normal brain aging are sexually dimorphic

Brain Activities on fMRI Using the shiritori Task in Normal Subjects

Influence of gender on psychomotor vigilance task performance by adolescents

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About