Gaab Nadine, Keenan Julian Paul, Schlaug Gottfried
Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School, USA.
J Cogn Neurosci. 2003 Aug 15;15(6):810-20. doi: 10.1162/089892903322370735.
Imaging studies have indicated that males and females differ anatomically in brain regions thought to underlie language functions. Functional studies have corroborated this difference by showing gender differences in terms of language processing with females relying on less lateralized processing strategies than males. Gender differences in musical functions might show similar differences in functional asymmetries, although no detailed study has been performed. The current study employed a pitch memory task while acquiring functional magnetic resonance images to investigate possible differences in hemispheric processing between males and females. Gender differences were found in the time course of activation (during the first four imaging time points after the end of the auditory stimulus-"perceptual phase"-and the subsequent three imaging time points after the end of the auditory stimulus-"memory phase") in both anterior and posterior perisylvian regions. Male subjects had greater lateralized activations (left > right) in anterior and posterior perisylvian regions during the "perceptual" as well as during the "memory" phase. There was a trend for males to have more cerebellar activation than females. Females showed more prominently posterior cingulate/retrosplenial cortex activation compared to males. Although activation patterns differed, there was no difference in the behavioral performance between both genders. These data indicate that similar to language studies, males rely more on left lateralized hemispheric processing even for basic pitch tasks.
影像学研究表明，男性和女性在被认为是语言功能基础的脑区存在解剖学差异。功能研究通过显示语言处理方面的性别差异证实了这一差异，即女性比男性依赖更少的偏侧化处理策略。音乐功能方面的性别差异可能在功能不对称方面表现出类似差异，尽管尚未进行详细研究。本研究采用音高记忆任务并采集功能磁共振图像，以调查男性和女性在半球处理方面可能存在的差异。在前颞周区和后颞周区，在激活的时间进程中（在听觉刺激结束后的前四个成像时间点——“感知阶段”，以及听觉刺激结束后的随后三个成像时间点——“记忆阶段”）均发现了性别差异。男性受试者在前颞周区和后颞周区的“感知”阶段以及“记忆”阶段均有更大的偏侧化激活（左>右）。男性比女性有更多小脑激活的趋势。与男性相比，女性后扣带回/压后皮质的激活更为显著。尽管激活模式不同，但两性在行为表现上没有差异。这些数据表明，与语言研究类似，即使是基本的音高任务，男性也更多地依赖左侧半球的处理。
