Posted by Annapaola Prestia Laboratory of Epidemiology Neuroimaging and Telemedicine, IRCCS Centro San Giovanni di Dio FBF, The National Centre for Research and Care of Alzheimer’s and Mental Diseases, Brescia, Italy. December 2010

Research analyzing the resting brain, has been mainly focused on correlations of different measures of brain activity with intelligence or personality typologies and not with gender differences. This study investigated electrophysiological (EEG) and hemodynamic (near infrared spectroscopy – NIRS) measures as a function of gender in normal adult individuals to further investigate gender related differences in resting brain activity. To get a deeper insight into this objective, human brain mapping techniques based on electrophysiological and hemodynamic principles were applied. The EEG data analysis was based on the resting eyes closed brain activity of 300 respondents (160 females). The NIRS analyses was based on 155 respondents (88 females).
The results of the present study indicated that males and females significantly differ in the default mode of brain activity: males and females differ in the local as well as long range coding of information as well as in the excitability dynamics of their cortical network.
The differences showed a rather complex pattern, suggesting that several differences between males and females in behaviour might have their sources in the activity of the resting brain. The authors suggest that when studying gender related differences in neuronal activity under cognitive load more emphasis should be paid to the activity in the resting brain.