Sex-Related Differences in Selective Auditory Attention in Dichotic Listening with Different Levels of Difficulty: fMRI Data

A group of 20 healthy subjects (11 men and nine women) were studied performing an fMRI task involving selective auditory attention in a dichotic listening paradigm with different levels of perceptual load. Analysis of brain activation patterns measured using fMRI during selective listening to continuous speech with distractors of different strengths identified statistically significant sex-related differences in the topography of cortical activity. “Women > men” effects predominated in the left superior temporal gyrus and the left pre- and postcentral gyri, while the most marked “male > female” effects were found in the left insula, putamen, and frontal operculum. Statistically significant effects were also obtained by comparing activation patterns in terms of task difficulty: masking with the voice of a female speaker produced greater activation of additional areas associated with high-level information processing. These data indicate the presence of sexual dimorphism in the organization of the selective auditory attention system.