Sex differences in the refractory period of the 100 ms auditory evoked magnetic field

THE 100 ms latency auditory evoked magnetic response (M100) has been implic ated in the earliest stage of acoustic memory encoding in the brain. Sex di fferences in this response have been found in its location within the brain and its functional properties. We recorded the M100 in 25 adults in respon se: to changes in interstimulus interval of an auditory stimulus. Response amplitudes of the M100 were used to compute a measure of the M100 refractor y period, which has been proposed to index the decay time constant of echoi c memory. This time constant was significantly longer in both hemispheres o f the female participants when compared to the male participants. possible implications of this for behavioral sex differences in human memory perform ance are discussed. NeuroReport 10:3321-3325 (C) 1999 Lippincott Williams & Wilkins.