The gist and details of sex differences in cognition and the brain: How parallels in sex differences across domains are shaped by the locus coeruleus and catecholamine systems. (May 2019)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Ycaza Herrera, Alexandra; Wang, Jiaxi; Mather, Mara
• Is Part Of: Progress in neurobiology. Volume 176(2019)
• Page Start: 120
• Page End: 133
• Publication Date: 2019-05
• Subjects: LC locus coeruleus -- NE norepinephrine -- fMRI Functional magnetic resonance imaging -- PET Positron emission tomography -- ERP Event related potential -- DA Dopamine -- CRF Corticotropin-releasing factor; Sex differences -- Emotional memory -- Spatial abilities -- Perception -- Locus coeruleus -- Norepinephrine; Neurobiology -- Periodicals; Neurology -- Periodicals; Neurology -- Periodicals; Neurobiologie -- Périodiques; 612.8
• DOI: 10.1016/j.pneurobio.2018.05.005
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0301-0082

Abstract

Highlights: Sex differences appear in emotional memory, spatial ability, and perceptual processing. The pattern of sex differences is similar across these disparate cognitive domains. Women tend to encode and recall detail-type information across these domains. Men tend to encode and recall gist-type information across these domains. Sex differences in the locus coeruleus and norepinephrine might drive the differences. Abstract: Across three different domains, there are similar sex differences in how men and women process information. There tends to be a male advantage in attending to and remembering the gist (essential central information of a scene or situation), but a female advantage in attending to and remembering the details (non-essential peripheral information of a scene or situation). This is seen in emotional memory, where emotion enhances gist memory more for males than for females, but enhances detail memory more for females than for males. It also occurs in spatial memory, where men tend to notice and remember the gist of where they or objects are in space, allowing them to more flexibly manipulate themselves or objects within that space, whereas women tend to recall the details of the space around them, allowing them to accurately remember the locations of objects. Finally, such sex differences have also been noted in perception of stimuli such that men attend to global aspects of stimuli (such as a large letter E) more than women, whereas women attend more to the local aspects (such as the many smaller letter Ts making up the E). We review the parallel sex differences seen across these domains in this paper and how they relate to the different brain systems involved in each of these task domains. In addition, we discuss how sex differences in evolutionary pressures and in the locus coeruleus and norepinephrine system may account for why parallel sex differences occur across these different task domains.