Sex differences in functional brain activation during a lexical visual field task.
Functional MRI was used to investigate sex differences in brain activation during a paradigm similar to a lexical-decision task. Six males and 6 females performed two runs of the lexical visual field task (i.e., deciding which visual field a word compared with a pseudoword was presented to). A sex difference was noted behaviorally: The reaction time data showed males had a marginal right visual field advantage and women a left visual field advantage. Imaging results showed that men had a strongly left-lateralized pattern of activation, e.g., inferior frontal and fusiform gyrus, while women showed a more symmetrical pattern in language related areas with greater right-frontal and right-middle-temporal activation. The data show evidence of task-specific sex differences in the cerebral organization of language processing.
Rossell
Susan L
SL
Department of Psychological Medicine and Neuroimaging, Institute of Psychiatry, London, UK. susan@maccs.mq.edu.au
Bullmore
Edward T
ET
Williams
Steve C R
SC
David
Anthony S
AS
D000328:Adult; D001921:Brain / Q000033:anatomy & histology / Q000502:physiology*; D003657:Decision Making; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D012737:Sex Factors; D014794:Visual Fields / Q000502:physiology*; D014825:Vocabulary