Adolescent sex differences in cortico-subcortical functional connectivity during response inhibition

Numerous lines of evidence have shown that cognitive processes engaged during response inhibition tasks are associated with structure and functional integration of regions within fronto-parietal networks. However, while prior studies have started to characterize how intrinsic connectivity during resting state differs between boys and girls, comparatively less is known about how functional connectivity differs between males and females when brain function is exogenously driven by the processing demands of typical Go/No-Go tasks that assess both response inhibition and error processing. The purpose of this study was to characterize adolescent sex differences and possible changes in sexually dimorphic regional functional connectivity across adolescent development in both cortical and subcortical brain connectivity elicited during a visual Go/No-Go task. A total of 130 healthy adolescents (ages 12-25 years) performed a Go/No-Go task during functional magnetic resonance imaging. High model-order group independent component analysis was used to characterize whole-brain network functional connectivity during response inhibition and then a univariate technique used to evaluate differences related to sex and age. As predicted and similar to previously described findings from non-task-driven resting state connectivity studies, functional connectivity sex differences were observed in several subcortical regions, including the amygdala, caudate, thalamus, and cortical regions, including inferior frontal gyrus engaged most strongly during successful response inhibition and/or error processing. Importantly, adolescent boys and girls exhibited different normative profiles of age-related changes in several default mode networks of regions and anterior cingulate cortex. These results suggest that cortical-subcortical functional networks supporting response inhibition operate differently between sexes during adolescence.