State Key Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience and Learning, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China.
Beijing Aging Brain Rejuvenation Initiative Centre, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China.
Cereb Cortex. 2024 Mar 1;34(3). doi: 10.1093/cercor/bhae067.
Although previous studies have reported the sex differences in behavior/cognition and the brain, the sex difference in the relationship between memory abilities and the underlying neural basis in the aging process remains unclear. In this study, we used a machine learning model to estimate the association between cortical thickness and verbal/visuospatial memory in females and males and then explored the sex difference of these associations based on a community-elderly cohort (n = 1153, age ranged from 50.42 to 86.67 years). We validated that females outperformed males in verbal memory, while males outperformed females in visuospatial memory. The key regions related to verbal memory in females include the medial temporal cortex, orbitofrontal cortex, and some regions around the insula. Further, those regions are more located in limbic, dorsal attention, and default-model networks, and are associated with face recognition and perception. The key regions related to visuospatial memory include the lateral prefrontal cortex, anterior cingulate gyrus, and some occipital regions. They overlapped more with dorsal attention, frontoparietal and visual networks, and were associated with object recognition. These findings imply the memory performance advantage of females and males might be related to the different memory processing tendencies and their associated network.
尽管先前的研究已经报道了行为/认知和大脑中的性别差异,但在衰老过程中,记忆能力与潜在神经基础之间的关系的性别差异仍不清楚。在这项研究中,我们使用机器学习模型来估计皮质厚度与女性和男性言语/视空间记忆之间的关联,然后基于社区老年人队列(n=1153,年龄范围为 50.42 岁至 86.67 岁)探讨这些关联的性别差异。我们验证了女性在言语记忆方面优于男性,而男性在视空间记忆方面优于女性。女性与言语记忆相关的关键区域包括内侧颞叶皮层、眶额皮层和岛叶周围的一些区域。此外,这些区域更多地位于边缘、背侧注意和默认模式网络中,与面部识别和感知有关。与视空间记忆相关的关键区域包括外侧前额叶皮层、前扣带回和一些枕叶区域。它们与背侧注意、额顶叶和视觉网络重叠更多,并与物体识别有关。这些发现表明,女性和男性的记忆表现优势可能与不同的记忆处理倾向及其相关网络有关。