title: Functional sex differences in human primary auditory cortex.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  We used PET to study cortical activation during auditory stimulation and found sex differences in the human primary auditory cortex (PAC). Regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF) was measured in 10 male and 10 female volunteers while listening to sounds (music or white noise) and during a baseline (no auditory stimulation).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  We found a sex difference in activation of the left and right PAC when comparing music to noise. The PAC was more activated by music than by noise in both men and women. But this difference between the two stimuli was significantly higher in men than in women. To investigate whether this difference could be attributed to either music or noise, we compared both stimuli with the baseline and revealed that noise gave a significantly higher activation in the female PAC than in the male PAC. Moreover, the male group showed a deactivation in the right prefrontal cortex when comparing noise to the baseline, which was not present in the female group. Interestingly, the auditory and prefrontal regions are anatomically and functionally linked and the prefrontal cortex is known to be engaged in auditory tasks that involve sustained or selective auditory attention. Thus we hypothesize that differences in attention result in a different deactivation of the right prefrontal cortex, which in turn modulates the activation of the PAC and thus explains the sex differences found in the activation of the PAC.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Our results suggest that sex is an important factor in auditory brain studies.
authors: Department of Otorhinolaryngology, University Medical Center Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands. l.ruytjens@umcutrecht.nl
authors: Liesbet
authors: L
authors: Ruytjens
authors: Janniko R
authors: JR
authors: Georgiadis
authors: Gert
authors: G
authors: Holstege
authors: Hero P
authors: HP
authors: Wit
authors: Frans W J
authors: FW
authors: Albers
authors: Antoon T M
authors: AT
authors: Willemsen
mesh_terms: D000161:Acoustic Stimulation / Q000379:methods*; D000328:Adult; D001303:Auditory Cortex / Q000502:physiology*; D001931:Brain Mapping / Q000379:methods*; D005072:Evoked Potentials, Auditory / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D049268:Positron-Emission Tomography / Q000379:methods*; D012737:Sex Factors
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