Gender-Related Brain Activations during an Emotional Task: An fMRI Study

Women have twice the rate of depression and anxiety disorders as men. Some studies suggest that this could be caused by women's greater sensitivity to negative emotions. Few brain imaging studies have compared the brain activity of men to women during a presentation of emotional stimuli. Our objective was to investigate brain activations in men and women during an emotional task. We hypothesized that the pattern of brain activations would differ by gender and valence of the stimuli.

We conducted a functional magnetic resonance imaging study in 30 healthy participants (15 men and 15 women). Positive, negative and neutral photographs were presented to the subjects. Participants subjectively rated the valence and intensity of the stimuli.

No significant gender-by-category interaction effect was observed for the intensity or valence of the stimuli. We found that, during the presentation of negative photographs, there was a higher activity in women's right fusiform gyrus compared to men's.

Given the involvement of the fusiform gyrus in anxiety disorders, this study yields promising findings in order to better understand women's vulnerability to anxiety disorders.