Vol 4 n° 2 - Cerebral aspects of reproductive endocrinology
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Gender and aging moderate brain–behavior relationships. Advances in neuroscience enable integration of neurobe- havioral, neuroanatomic, and neurophysiologic measures. Here we present neurobehavioral studies that examine cognitive and emotion processing in healthy men and women and highlight the effects of sex differences and aging. Neuroanatomic studies with magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) indicate that the progressive decrease in brain volume affects frontotemporal brain regions in men more than in women. Functional imaging methods sug- gest sex differences in rate of blood flow, pattern of glu- cose metabolism, and receptor activity. The role of ovari- an hormones is important in elucidating the observed relationships. A life span perspective on gender differences through  the  integration  of  available  methodologies will advance understanding healthy people and the effects of brain disorders. Dialogues Clin Neurosci. 2002;4:197-210. here is extensive literature documenting the moderating effects of healthy aging and gender on cog- nition. Convergent multidisciplinary efforts, mostly in young adults, have helped identify neural systems asso- ciated with behavioral domains.Age effects on behavior and brain parameters are already observed in young adulthood.These indicate more pronounced age-related changes  in  men  than  in  women. Sex  differences  are salient in the aging process, and there is increasing evi- dence for the role of ovarian hormones in mediating behavior and brain function. Therefore, an integrative approach to examining the aging process in men and women, through the application of neuroimaging, can be helpful in elucidating the neurobehavioral differences. Age and gender effects on cognition and emotion processing Age effects on cognition have been studied extensively. Measures of intellectual abilities and vocabulary, the “crystallized” abilities, are more resistant to age effects than “fluid” abilities,1 such as attention and executive functions. There  is  age-related  decline  in  processing speed.2 Memory functions seem most affected, particu- larly those related to source memory (“episodic” or “explicit”).3-10 Sex differences in cognition have been well documented.Women perform better on verbal and memory tasks, whereas men excel in spatial tasks.11-16 However, sex differences in aging effects have not been established across the life span. Some evidence suggests that women show less age-associated cognitive decline than men.17,18 Our data on young adults (age 18–45 years) indicate that men show significant decline in several neu- rocognitive domains while women evince no decline. However, in small samples of older adults the decline rate seems similar. We have initially studied sex difference in neurocogni- tive measures with a standardized battery that examines C l i n i c a l   r e s e a r c h 1 9 7 Gender differences in aging: cognition, emotions, and neuroimaging studies Raquel E. Gur, MD, PhD; Ruben C. Gur, PhD Keywords:  gender difference, aging, cognition, emotion, neuroimaging

Author affiliations: Neuropsychiatry Section, Department of Psychiatry, University of Pennsylvania Medical Center, Philadelphia, Pa, USA

Address for correspondence: Dr Raquel E. Gur, MD, PhD, Department of Psychiatry, University of Pennsylvania Medical Center, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA (e-mail: raquel@bbl.med.upenn.edu)

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