title: Gender characteristics of cerebral hemodynamics during complex cognitive functioning.
abstract: Functional Transcranial Doppler sonography (fTCD) has been applied to assess peak mean cerebral blood flow velocity (MFV) with a high temporal resolution during cognitive activation. Yet, little attention has been devoted to gender-related alterations of MFV, including spectral analysis. In healthy subjects, fTCD was used to investigate a series of cerebral hemodynamic parameters in the middle cerebral arteries (MCA) during the Trail Making Tests (TMT), a means of selective attention and complex cognitive functioning. In females, there was a frequency peak at 0.375 Hz in both MCA, and we observed a dynamic shift in hemispheric dominance during that condition. Further, after the start phase, there was an MFV decline during complex functioning for the entire sample. These novel results suggest condition-specific features of cerebral hemodynamics in females, and it adds to the notion that gender is a fundamental confounder of brain physiology.
authors.affiliation: Psychiatric University Hospital Zürich, Lenggstrasse 31, 8032 Zürich, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Maria
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Misteli
authors.forename: Stefan
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Duschek
authors.forename: André
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Richter
authors.forename: Simone
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Grimm
authors.forename: Markus
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Rezk
authors.forename: Rainer
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Kraehenmann
authors.forename: Heinz
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Boeker
authors.forename: Erich
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Seifritz
authors.forename: Daniel
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Schuepbach
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D001783:Blood Flow Velocity / Q000502:physiology; D001921:Brain / Q000502:physiology*; D002560:Cerebrovascular Circulation / Q000502:physiology*; D003071:Cognition / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D007839:Functional Laterality / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D012727:Sex Characteristics; D017585:Ultrasonography, Doppler, Transcranial