Elsevier

Brain and Cognition

Volume 55, Issue 1, June 2004, Pages 134-147
Brain and Cognition

Sex differences in early childhood, adolescence, and adulthood on cognitive tasks that rely on orbital prefrontal cortex

https://doi.org/10.1016/S0278-2626(03)00279-3Get rights and content

Abstract

Through the use of several tests of cognition we have documented sex differences in young children, adolescents, and adults on tasks that rely on the integrity of the orbital prefrontal cortex. In children under three years of age, males performed with significantly fewer errors than did females on tests of object reversals. No significant sex differences were found in older children, despite the use of a more challenging object reversal task. Sex differences were also found in adolescents and adults on the Iowa Gambling Task. On this decision-making task, in contrast to males, females appear to be responding to different elements of the task. Discussion of the implications for these findings is presented.

Introduction

For a number of years, our laboratory has investigated sex differences on cognitive tasks that are known to rely on the integrity of the orbital prefrontal cortex. We have found evidence for “orbital” cognitive sex differences among the following age groups: children below the age of three years, adolescents between the ages of 12 and 18, young adults in their twenties, and older adults over 55 years. We have not found cognitive sex differences in children between three years of age and puberty. Below we present these data and discuss their possible meaning.

Section snippets

Cognitive sex differences in young children

Our laboratory has tested children on cognitive tasks that were originally developed for monkeys. These tasks include object discriminations, delayed matching and non-matching to sample, single and multiple pair concurrent discriminations, visual preferential viewing, trial unique oddity, landmark discriminations, and object reversals (for review, see Overman & Bachevalier, 1999). Two of these tasks are of particular interest for this Special Issue because their use has revealed a double

A search for cognitive sex differences in older children

The results of the object reversal experiments with children elicit two important questions: (1) If our inferences are correct and cognitive sex differences in young children are related to the testosterone surge (that is limited to the first half of the first year of life), why are the sex differences found as late as three years of age (Overman & Godin, unpublished data)? One possibility is that the perinatal testosterone surge imparts some organizational effect on brain anatomy and function

Learning in the WGTA compared with learning on the computer

One hundred and twenty-one children between the ages of 3 and 5 years were trained on two object discriminations followed by three 100% reversals of the second discrimination. Thirty-three of these (18 males and 15 females) were trained in the WGTA at 15 trials a day, day after day, until attainment of criterion on each phase of the task as reported earlier (Overman et al., 1996). Children in this group received food reward (Froot Loops) and social rewards (“good boy/girl”) for each correct

Cognitive sex differences among adults: The Iowa Gambling Task

One of the reoccurring themes of this Special Issue concerns cognitive changes that follow damage to the orbital prefrontal cortex. One of the most common changes involves impairments in the quality of personal decision-making abilities. Patients with orbital damage demonstrate relative insensitivity to future consequences even when their decisions are against their personal interest; however, these patients maintain relatively normal intellectual functioning in other realms (Bechara, Damasio,

Additional evidence for sex differences in the orbital prefrontal cortex

In addition to the data cited above, there is accumulating evidence from other methodologies for sex differences in the functions of orbital prefrontal cortex. Thus, positron emission tomography (PET) study reveals a significant difference in the metabolic rate of glucose utilization in the orbital prefrontal cortex of 19- to 32-year-old normal men and women (Andreason, Zametkin, Guo, Baldwin, & Cohen, 1993). During a mentally “idling” state, normal adult men have higher relative metabolism (as

Summary and implications

Our lab has documented sex differences in the behavior of young children, adolescents, and adults on tasks that rely on the integrity of the orbital prefrontal cortex. Others in this Special Issue have at least some data to support our findings. For the most part, studies presented in this issue, did not include analyses for sex differences. Hopefully, these behavioral and imaging data will be analyzed for sex differences.

Evidence is accumulating that regions of the frontal cortex, including

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    This research was supported by National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Grant RO1 HD 35542-01A1 and by John D. and Catherine MacArthur Foundation, Research Network on Psychopathology and Development Grant PR-15001/99.

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