Gender Differences in Brain Functional Organization During Verbal and Spatial Cognitive Challenges

Abstract

This is a quantitative EEG study of gender-related differences in brain function. It is novel in that to elicit gender differences, it was necessary to apply a spatial filter to the EEGs that was effective for suppressing components common to different cognitive states. The study involved estimates of both the source-current power density in the brain and the complex coherence between different regions in the brain, the latter probably unique in EEG source analysis. Gender effects are shown in terms of differences in both lateralized source power and complex coherence in response to verbal and spatial cognitive challenges. The results provide evidence that verbal and spatial challenges are more lateralized in males than in females, that females are more verbal than males, that males are more spatial than females, that females verbalize more interpretively than males and that males verbalize more consequentially than females.