Gender Differences of Brain Activation during Visual Orienting Induced by Pointing Symbols

摘要

Brain activation during visual orienting induced by pointing symbols was investigated by functional magnetic resonance imaging. We conducted four experiments in which peripheral attention was caused by a pointing index finger or an arrow that was uninformative to the target location. Gender differences of brain activation were detected in the right middle frontal gyrus, the superior frontal sulcus including the frontal eye field, the inferior parietal lobule, the left intraparietal sulcus, and the bilateral inferior frontal sulci during visual orienting induced by the pointing index finger at the longer SOA (=500 msec). In conclusion, the pointing index finger produces different effects on not only the response times but also brain activation between males and females.