The neurobiology of sex differences during language processing in healthy adults: A systematic review and a meta-analysis

The neurobiology of sex differences during language processing has been widely investigated in the past three decades. While substantial sex differences have been reported, empirical findings however appear largely equivocal. The present systematic review of the literature and meta-analysis aimed to determine the degree of agreement among studies reporting sex differences in cortical activity during language processing. Irrespective of the modality and the specificity of the language task, sex differences in the BOLD signal or cerebral blood flow was highly inconsistent across fMRI and PET studies. On the temporal side, earlier latency of auditory evoked responses for female compared to male participants were consistently observed in EEG studies during both listening and speaking. Overall, the present review and meta-analysis support the theoretical assumption that there are much more similarities than differences between men and women in the human brain during language processing. Subtle but consistent temporal differences are however observed in the auditory processing of phonetic cues during speech perception and production.