Several studies have suggested that females and males differ in reward behaviors and their underlying neural circuitry. Whether human sex differences extend across neural and behavioral levels for both rewards and punishments remains unclear. We studied a community sample of 221 young women and men who performed a monetary incentive task known to engage the mesoaccumbal pathway and salience network. Both stimulus salience (behavioral relevance) and valence (win vs loss) varied during the task. In response to high- vs low-salience stimuli presented during the monetary incentive task, men showed greater subjective arousal ratings, behavioral accuracy and skin conductance responses (P < 0.006, Hedges’ effect size g = 0.38 to 0.46). In a subsample studied with functional magnetic resonance imaging (n = 44), men exhibited greater responsiveness to stimulus salience in the nucleus accumbens, midbrain, anterior insula and dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (P < 0.02, g = 0.86 to 1.7). Behavioral, autonomic and neural sensitivity to the valence of stimuli did not differ by sex, indicating that responses to rewards vs punishments were similar in women and men. These results reveal novel and robust sex differences in reward- and punishment-related traits, behavior, autonomic activity and neural responses. These convergent results suggest a neurobehavioral basis for sexual dimorphism observed in the reward system, including reward-related disorders.

中文翻译：

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人类奖励系统中的性别差异：趋同的行为、自主和神经证据。


多项研究表明，女性和男性的奖励行为及其潜在的神经回路存在差异。人类的性别差异是否会影响奖励和惩罚的神经和行为水平，目前尚不清楚。我们研究了 221 名年轻女性和男性的社区样本，他们执行了已知参与中累积路径和显着性网络的货币激励任务。刺激显着性（行为相关性）和效价（赢与输）在任务过程中都发生变化。在金钱激励任务中，男性对高显着性刺激和低显着性刺激的反应表现出更高的主观唤醒等级、行为准确性和皮肤电导反应（ P < 0.006，Hedges 效应大小g = 0.38 至 0.46）。在使用功能磁共振成像研究的子样本中 ( n = 44)，男性对伏核、中脑、前岛叶和背侧前扣带皮层的刺激显着性表现出更高的反应性 ( P < 0.02， g = 0.86 至 1.7)。行为、自主神经和神经对刺激效价的敏感性并没有因性别而异，这表明女性和男性对奖励和惩罚的反应相似。这些结果揭示了奖励和惩罚相关特征、行为、自主活动和神经反应方面的新颖而强大的性别差异。这些趋同的结果表明，在奖赏系统中观察到的性别二态性存在神经行为基础，包括与奖赏相关的疾病。