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Are women better mindreaders? Sex differences in neural correlates of mentalizing detected with functional MRI

BACKGROUND: The ability to mentalize, i.e. develop a Theory of Mind (ToM), enables us to anticipate and build a model of the thoughts, emotions and intentions of others. It has long been hypothesised that women differ from men in their mentalizing abilities. In the present fMRI study we examined the...

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Autores principales: Krach, Sören, Blümel, Isabelle, Marjoram, Dominic, Lataster, Tineke, Krabbendam, Lydia, Weber, Jochen, van Os, Jim, Kircher, Tilo
Formato: Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2009
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2667181/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19193204
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2202-10-9
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author Krach, Sören
Blümel, Isabelle
Marjoram, Dominic
Lataster, Tineke
Krabbendam, Lydia
Weber, Jochen
van Os, Jim
Kircher, Tilo
author_facet Krach, Sören
Blümel, Isabelle
Marjoram, Dominic
Lataster, Tineke
Krabbendam, Lydia
Weber, Jochen
van Os, Jim
Kircher, Tilo
author_sort Krach, Sören
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: The ability to mentalize, i.e. develop a Theory of Mind (ToM), enables us to anticipate and build a model of the thoughts, emotions and intentions of others. It has long been hypothesised that women differ from men in their mentalizing abilities. In the present fMRI study we examined the impact of (1) gender (women vs. men) and (2) game partner (human vs. computer) on ToM associated neural activity in the medial prefrontal cortex. Groups of men (n = 12) and women (n = 12) interacted in an iterated classical prisoner's dilemma forced choice situation with alleged human and computer partners who were outside the scanner. RESULTS: Both the conditions of playing against putative human as well as computer partners led to activity increases in mPFC, ACC and rTPJ, constituting the classic ToM network. However, mPFC/ACC activity was more pronounced when participants believed they were playing against the alleged human partner. Differences in the medial frontal lobe activation related to the sex of the participants could be demonstrated for the human partner > computer partner contrast. CONCLUSION: Our data demonstrate differences in medial prefrontal brain activation during a ToM task depending on both the gender of participants and the game partner.
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spelling pubmed-26671812009-04-09 Are women better mindreaders? Sex differences in neural correlates of mentalizing detected with functional MRI Krach, Sören Blümel, Isabelle Marjoram, Dominic Lataster, Tineke Krabbendam, Lydia Weber, Jochen van Os, Jim Kircher, Tilo BMC Neurosci Research Article BACKGROUND: The ability to mentalize, i.e. develop a Theory of Mind (ToM), enables us to anticipate and build a model of the thoughts, emotions and intentions of others. It has long been hypothesised that women differ from men in their mentalizing abilities. In the present fMRI study we examined the impact of (1) gender (women vs. men) and (2) game partner (human vs. computer) on ToM associated neural activity in the medial prefrontal cortex. Groups of men (n = 12) and women (n = 12) interacted in an iterated classical prisoner's dilemma forced choice situation with alleged human and computer partners who were outside the scanner. RESULTS: Both the conditions of playing against putative human as well as computer partners led to activity increases in mPFC, ACC and rTPJ, constituting the classic ToM network. However, mPFC/ACC activity was more pronounced when participants believed they were playing against the alleged human partner. Differences in the medial frontal lobe activation related to the sex of the participants could be demonstrated for the human partner > computer partner contrast. CONCLUSION: Our data demonstrate differences in medial prefrontal brain activation during a ToM task depending on both the gender of participants and the game partner. BioMed Central 2009-02-04 /pmc/articles/PMC2667181/ /pubmed/19193204 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2202-10-9 Text en Copyright © 2009 Krach et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0 This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License ( (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0) ), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Krach, Sören
Blümel, Isabelle
Marjoram, Dominic
Lataster, Tineke
Krabbendam, Lydia
Weber, Jochen
van Os, Jim
Kircher, Tilo
Are women better mindreaders? Sex differences in neural correlates of mentalizing detected with functional MRI
title Are women better mindreaders? Sex differences in neural correlates of mentalizing detected with functional MRI
title_full Are women better mindreaders? Sex differences in neural correlates of mentalizing detected with functional MRI
title_fullStr Are women better mindreaders? Sex differences in neural correlates of mentalizing detected with functional MRI
title_full_unstemmed Are women better mindreaders? Sex differences in neural correlates of mentalizing detected with functional MRI
title_short Are women better mindreaders? Sex differences in neural correlates of mentalizing detected with functional MRI
title_sort are women better mindreaders? sex differences in neural correlates of mentalizing detected with functional mri
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2667181/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19193204
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2202-10-9
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