Moore CS, Miller IN, Andersen RL, Arndt S, Haynes WG, Moser DJ.
Department of Psychiatry, University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine, Iowa City, IA, USA.
J Clin Exp Neuropsychol. 2010 May 28:1-8. [Epub ahead of print]

Abstract  
This study was conducted to assess gender differences in cognition in elderly individuals (N = 88; 38 women, 50 men) with atherosclerotic vascular disease (AVD) and to determine whether these were attributable to differences in vascular health. Assessments included neuropsychological testing and measurement of forearm vascular function using venous occlusion plethysmography. There was a significant female advantage on multiple neuropsychological tests. This gender effect was reduced somewhat but remained significant when controlling for education and vascular function. Our study suggests that gender differences in cognition persist into older age and are not primarily due to gender differences in vascular health.

Gender differences in cognitive abilities have been extensively studied and widely debated. In this paper Moore et al. wanted to evaluate if there are gender differences in cognition in a sample of elderly individuals with vascular disease and to determine whether gender differences in vascular health (measured as vasodilator function) could account for any observed gender differences in neuropsychological performance. In the study, women showed significantly greater forearm endothelium-mediated vasodilation in response to acetylcholine than men, suggesting relatively superior vascular health among women. Even when controlling for this variance, gender differences in neuropsychological function remained significant on most tests. Women showed significantly higher global neuropsychological function (RBANS Total Score) and significantly outperformed men on 5 of the 12 RBANS subtests (Coding, List Learning, List Recall, List Recognition, and Semantic Fluency). In contrast, men performed better than women on 1 RBANS subtest (Line Orientation) (Table attached below) This supports a conclusion that the gender difference in cognitive performance is independent of vascular health.
The authors point out that one important limitation of their study is that all participants had clinically significant vascular disease, and thus these findings may not be relevant to healthy older adults, since gender differences in vascular function in older adults without clinical vascular disease might moderate gender differences in cognition.

[For a more complete view of the results, please see the article that can be accessed at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20512721].