title: Sex differences in motor performance and motor learning in children and adolescents: an increasing male advantage in motor learning and consolidation phase gains.
abstract: We investigated gender differences in motor performance in 9-, 12-, and 17-year-olds. The tasks included simple thumb tapping (sTT), handwriting (HW) and finger-to-thumb opposition sequence (FOS) learning. In sTT there was a significant advantage for the 17-year-old males. In HW, 12-year-old females were faster, initially, than the males, but this gap was closed by a single training session; in the 17-year-olds although no significant difference was found initially, the males became faster than the age-matched females post-training. In the FOS, there were no initial gender differences (speed or accuracy). However, males benefited more from training, with the 17-year-old males attaining a significant post-training speed advantage. Moreover, males, of all three age-groups, evolved significantly larger delayed ("off-line") performance gains in the FOS task compared to females; gains which were retained 6-weeks post-training. There may be a male advantage in motor learning rather than in motor performance per-se; this advantage is enhanced during adolescence.
authors.affiliation: The Laboratory for Functional Brain Imaging & Learning Research, The Brain Behavior Research Center, University of Haifa, Haifa 31905, Israel.
authors.forename: Shoshi
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Dorfberger
authors.forename: Esther
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Adi-Japha
authors.forename: Avi
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Karni
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D002648:Child; D005260:Female; D005385:Fingers / Q000502:physiology; D007839:Functional Laterality / Q000502:physiology*; D006236:Handwriting; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008568:Memory / Q000502:physiology*; D009048:Motor Skills / Q000502:physiology; D011214:Practice, Psychological; D011597:Psychomotor Performance / Q000502:physiology*; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology; D012737:Sex Factors; D013647:Task Performance and Analysis; D013933:Thumb / Q000502:physiology