GENDER COMPARISONS OF CEREBRAL GLUCOSE METABOLIC-RATE IN HEALTHY-ADULTS DURING A COGNITIVE TASK

Forty-one healthy volunteer subjects (26 men and 15 women; ages 18-45) underwent positron emission tomography (PET) to measure global and re gional cerebral glucose metabolic rate (GMR). Subjects performed a cog nitive activation task, the continuous performance rest of attention, during uptake of the [F-18]deoxyglucose as a metabolic tracer. No gend er effect was seen in regional or global GMR; relative GMR (ratio of r egional GMR to whole brain GMR) showed seven regions that differed bet ween males and females. This suggests that during an activation task s ome brain regions may elicit gender differences when compared to the w hole brain.