title: Gender and rapid alterations of hemispheric dominance during planning.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Mental planning and carrying out a plan provoke specific cerebral hemodynamic responses. Gender aspects of hemispheric laterality using rapid cerebral hemodynamics have not been reported.
  
  
  METHODS
  Here, we applied functional transcranial Doppler sonography to examine lateralization of cerebral hemodynamics of the middle cerebral arteries of 28 subjects (14 women and 14 men) performing a standard planning task. There were easy and difficult problems, and mental planning without motor activity was separated from movement execution.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Difficult mental planning elicited lateralization to the right hemisphere after 2 or more seconds, a feature that was not observed during movement execution. In females, there was a dominance to the left hemisphere during movement execution. Optimized problem solving yielded an increased laterality change to the right during mental planning.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Gender-related hemispheric dominance appears to be condition-dependent, and change of laterality to the right may play a role in optimized performance. Results are of relevance when considering laterality from a perspective of performance enhancement of higher cognitive functions, and also of psychiatric disorders with cognitive dysfunctions and abnormal lateralization patterns such as schizophrenia.
authors.affiliation: Clinic for Affective Disorders and General Psychiatry, Psychiatric University Hospital Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland. daniel.schuepbach@puk.zh.ch
authors.forename: Daniel
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Schuepbach
authors.forename: Tatjana
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Skotchko
authors.forename: Stefan
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Duschek
authors.forename: Anastasia
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Theodoridou
authors.forename: Simone
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Grimm
authors.forename: Heinz
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Boeker
authors.forename: Erich
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Seifritz
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001783:Blood Flow Velocity / Q000502:physiology; D002540:Cerebral Cortex / Q000098:blood supply* / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging; D004292:Dominance, Cerebral / Q000502:physiology*; D056344:Executive Function / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D020768:Middle Cerebral Artery / Q000502:physiology; D009068:Movement / Q000502:physiology; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D011340:Problem Solving / Q000502:physiology*; D012727:Sex Characteristics; D018709:Statistics, Nonparametric; D013997:Time Factors; D017585:Ultrasonography, Doppler, Transcranial; D055815:Young Adult