摘要：Gender differences in the visuo-spatial and mathematical cognitive domain seem
to rely on the preferences for different cognitive strategies. Such differences
may involve or reflect different neural circuits. In this study three number
related tasks and a mental rotation fMRI-paradigm were used to examine whether
different brain activation and performance patterns could be observed between
genders. In a simple magnitude comparison task no gender differences in brain
activation patterns were found. In contrast, during exact calculation,
approximation and mental rotation tasks that demand the use of more complex
problem solving strategies, different activation pat-terns were observed between
men and women. In particular, women showed additional acti-vation in bilateral
temporal, right inferior frontal and primary motor areas. These results indicate
that women use cognitive strategies that involve brain areas for spatial and
verbal working memory and speech/head-motor mechanisms while solving mental
rotation and number related problems.
