Sex differences in emotional contexts modulation on response inhibition

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Cognitive Psychology
• Psychophysiology

Background:

• Emotional contexts significantly influence cognitive functions.
• Understanding sex differences in emotional processing is crucial for cognitive neuroscience.
• Response inhibition is a key executive function modulated by emotional states.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate sex differences in response inhibition under varying emotional contexts.
• To analyze event-related potentials (ERPs) associated with inhibition in neutral, pleasant, and unpleasant contexts.
• To explore the temporal dynamics of emotional influence on inhibitory control.

Main Methods:

• Participants completed a Go-NoGo task under three distinct emotional contexts.
• Event-related potentials (ERPs), specifically N2NoGo and P3NoGo amplitudes, were recorded.
• Behavioral accuracy and ERP data were analyzed for sex differences and contextual effects.

Main Results:

• No significant sex differences in response inhibition accuracy were observed.
• Women exhibited higher N2NoGo amplitudes than men in emotional contexts.
• The unpleasant context enhanced N2NoGo amplitudes in both sexes, suggesting increased attentional and conflict monitoring demands.

Conclusions:

• Emotional contexts, especially unpleasant ones, reveal sex differences in the neural correlates of response inhibition.
• Women may engage more cognitive resources during earlier processing stages of inhibition in emotional contexts.
• Men's inhibition performance correlated with earlier neural resource engagement in emotional contexts, indicating distinct processing strategies.