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. 2020 Feb;20(1):1-18.
doi: 10.3758/s13415-019-00718-y.

Adolescent sex differences in cortico-subcortical functional connectivity during response inhibition

Yu Sun Chung  1 , Vince Calhoun  2   3 , Michael C Stevens  4   5
Affiliations

Adolescent sex differences in cortico-subcortical functional connectivity during response inhibition

Yu Sun Chung et al. Cogn Affect Behav Neurosci. 2020 Feb.

Abstract

Numerous lines of evidence have shown that cognitive processes engaged during response inhibition tasks are associated with structure and functional integration of regions within fronto-parietal networks. However, while prior studies have started to characterize how intrinsic connectivity during resting state differs between boys and girls, comparatively less is known about how functional connectivity differs between males and females when brain function is exogenously driven by the processing demands of typical Go/No-Go tasks that assess both response inhibition and error processing. The purpose of this study was to characterize adolescent sex differences and possible changes in sexually dimorphic regional functional connectivity across adolescent development in both cortical and subcortical brain connectivity elicited during a visual Go/No-Go task. A total of 130 healthy adolescents (ages 12-25 years) performed a Go/No-Go task during functional magnetic resonance imaging. High model-order group independent component analysis was used to characterize whole-brain network functional connectivity during response inhibition and then a univariate technique used to evaluate differences related to sex and age. As predicted and similar to previously described findings from non-task-driven resting state connectivity studies, functional connectivity sex differences were observed in several subcortical regions, including the amygdala, caudate, thalamus, and cortical regions, including inferior frontal gyrus engaged most strongly during successful response inhibition and/or error processing. Importantly, adolescent boys and girls exhibited different normative profiles of age-related changes in several default mode networks of regions and anterior cingulate cortex. These results suggest that cortical-subcortical functional networks supporting response inhibition operate differently between sexes during adolescence.

Keywords: Adolescence; Functional network connectivity; Response inhibition; Sex difference.

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Conflict of interest statement

Conflicts of Interest Statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
The schematic diagram of the ICA approach used in current study. Boxes on the left indicate general steps potentially applicable to a variety of data and analysis types; boxes on the right indicate particular choices made for our data and analysis used in current work Note. FDR = False Discovery Rate
Figure 2.
Figure 2.
Sex Effects in Functional Connectivity Associated with Go/No-Go Task Performance
Figure 3.
Figure 3.
Age Effects in Functional Connectivity Associated with Go/No-Go Task Performance Note. CR = Correct Rejects
Figure 4.
Figure 4.
Sex-specific Age Effect in Functional Connectivity Associated with Go/No-Go Task Performance Note. CR = Correct Rejects, FA = False Alarm
Figure 5.
Figure 5.
Functional Network Connectivity of Sex Effect. Colorful lines represent significance and direction of each pairwise correlation among five components as displayed by - sign(t)log10(p). Hot color lines represent greater functional network connectivity for girls than boys while cool color lines indicate greater functional network connectivity for boys than girls. Note. BOTH= both correct rejects and false alarms, IC= Independent Components, IC 46 = Superior parietal lobule, IC 51= Posterior cingulate cortex, IC 56 = Inferior parietal cortex, IC 65 = Superior parietal lobule, IC 73 = Anterior Cingulate Cortex
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