Studies in a group of 38 subjects (19 men and 19 women) performing the “n-back” working memory (WM) task with grid stimuli showed that the neural mechanisms detecting differences between the current orientation and the orientation held in memory in men and women were different. Analysis of event-related potentials showed that only men displayed an increase in N150 in the visual cortex as a marker of early detection of changes. Regardless of match/mismatch of the current orientation and the orientation held in memory, men, as compared with women, demonstrated a higher P200 amplitude in the occipital-temporal regions, along with greater positivity in the 400–500 msec window in the central regions, which can be regarded as a manifestation of greater selective attention to orientations, attracting more of the resources of visual WM. Multivariate analysis of dipole activity showed that detection of differences in the current and retained orientations in men mainly involved the caudal projection areas of the cortex, while women demonstrated greater involvement of the frontal regions. The data obtained here indicate that sex is important as a factor influencing the neural network organization of visuospatial information processing.
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Translated from Zhurnal Vysshei Nervnoi Deyatel’nosti imeni I. P. Pavlova, Vol. 72, No. 6, pp. 836–850, November–December, 2022.
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Mikhailova, E.S., Mayorova, L.A., Gerasimenko, N.Y. et al. Sex-Related Differences in Working Memory for Simple Visual Features. Analysis of Event-Related Potentials in the Space of Sensors and Dipole Sources. Neurosci Behav Physi 53, 579–589 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11055-023-01456-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11055-023-01456-y