Abstract
The prefrontal cortex (PFC) is thought to play an important role in “higher” brain functions such as personality and emotion that may associated with several gender-related mental disorders. In this study, the gender effects of functional connectivity, cortical lateralization and significantly differences in the PFC were investigated by using resting-state functional optical tomography (fOT) measurement. A total of forty subjects including twenty healthy male and twenty healthy female adults were recruited for this study. In the results, the hemoglobin responses are higher in the male group. Additionally, male group exhibited the stronger connectivity in the PFC regions. In the result of lateralization, leftward dominant was observed in the male group but bilateral dominance in the female group. Finally, the 11 channels of the inferior PFC regions (corresponding to the region of Brodmann area 45) are significant different with spectrum analysis. Our findings suggest that the resting-state fOT method can provide high potential to apply to clinical neuroscience for several gender-related mental disorders diagnosis.
Highlights
Resting-state functional connectivity, which refers to the spontaneous neural activity, has become one of the important approaches for neuroscience to understanding the functional organization of the human brain [1]
The results of correlation matrices represent the strength of resting-state functional connectivity for ΔHbO2, ΔHb and ΔtHb of each paired channel of male and female groups in group-level analysis
The results suggest the functional optical tomography (fOT)-based brain functional connectivity matrices are reliable across different groups
Summary
Resting-state functional connectivity, which refers to the spontaneous neural activity, has become one of the important approaches for neuroscience to understanding the functional organization of the human brain [1]. FMRI provides several strengths such as noninvasive and excellent spatial resolution, the limitation of huge size of instruments and confines the participants to restricted positions inside the magnet cannot provide diagnosis with patient-oriented measurement. These characteristics make the imaging modalities as difficult or impossible to apply to many uses, including use with neonates, children, old persons, and claustrophobia patients. The scanning noise of fMRI cannot provide really undisturbed condition in resting-state measurement
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