Previous neuroimaging studies have reported differences in regional brain activation between males and females during stop signal task performance, suggesting the presence of sex-linked differences in brain network organization of inhibitory ability. Despite a growing literature on sex differences during stop signal task performance, a consensus still has not been reached due to variations in task design and analysis methods. Due to these disparate findings we used up to date stop signal task methods to compare behavioral performance and associated brain activation between males and females using an event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging design. We observed that males were faster in inhibiting their responses, but females exhibited marked increased in stopping network activation, in addition to increased activation of the anterior insula and left amygdala. These findings suggest that males and females process stop signals differently.

先前的神经影像学研究报告了在停止信号任务执行期间男性和女性之间区域大脑激活的差异，这表明抑制能力的大脑网络组织存在性别相关的差异。尽管关于停止信号任务执行期间性别差异的文献越来越多，但由于任务设计和分析方法的差异，仍未达成共识。由于这些不同的发现，我们使用最新的停止信号任务方法来比较男性和女性使用事件相关功能磁共振成像设计的行为表现和相关的大脑激活。我们观察到男性在抑制其反应方面更快，但女性在阻止网络激活方面表现出显着增加，除了增加前脑岛和左杏仁核的激活。这些发现表明，男性和女性处理停止信号的方式不同。