Sex-related Difference in Mental Rotation Performance is Mediated by the special Functional Connectivity Between the...

The mental rotation task is a particular spatial skill that helps people process visual information and is associated with intelligence and academic performance. Previous studies have found consistent sex difference in mental rotation. However, the neural mechanism of the sex-related difference in mental rotation remains unclear. This study investigates the association between sex, mental rotation and the functional connectivity (FC) of resting-state networks (RSNs) to explore neural correlates of different mental rotation abilities between males and females. Compared with females, males performed better on the mental rotation test. The mental rotation scores were significantly correlated with the special FC between the default mode network (DMN) and salience network (SN). The results of the mediation analysis revealed that the special FC between the DMN and SN mediated the association between sex and mental rotation. Based on these findings, males had higher FC between the DMN and SN, which subsequently promoted their mental rotation performance. These results emphasized the importance of sex in spatial cognition studies of both healthy people and individuals with neuropsychiatric disorders and deepened our understanding of the neural mechanisms underlying sex difference in mental rotation.