Sexual dimorphism in the state of higher mental functions in the period of adulthood

The article deals with the results of higher mental functions' neuropsychological investigation of 180 women and men aged from 21 to 55 years. The state of serial organization movements, programming and control of arbitrary activities forms, kinesthetic visuospatial and audioverbal functions and visual gnosis were analyzed. The manifestations of sexual dimorphism are identified; upon that sexual dimorphism is ambiguous, the representatives of each sex have strengths and weaknesses in the state of higher mental functions. The most persistent differences are connected with men's advantage in the level of the anterior brain and the right brain functioning, it is manifested in more successful organization of movements and processing of the visual-spatial information. Women have a higher performance of the impressive speech and verbal-perceptual aspects of visuognosis connected with sinistro-cerebral activity. Almost all the sexual characteristics are sex and age, upon that they become more distinct when passing to the following stage of adulthood. In early adulthood these differences are not numerous; they possess unsteady character and generally concern the functions of information processing. Women demonstrate a worse selectivity of memory traces and their projection representation is less formed. In middle adulthood there is a tendency to the advantage of men's ability to automate motor skills, at this stage their kinesthetic praxis and dextrocerebral functions are better. Women are better at processing the auditory information. In late adulthood the greatest number of differences accounts for performances of serial organization of movements and polymodal information processing. Men in this age group show benefits in spatial characteristics, better communicate with the projection representation of the three-dimensional image, they have a higher performance of constructive thinking and memorizing non-verbalized figures. They also easier learn and automate motor skills, rarely admit failures during motion programs. Women have the advantage in the sinistro-cerebral functions, they also possess more accurate visual perception. Sexual dimorphism in the state of higher mental functions is accompanied by interindividual irregularity. In the course of general tendencies towards the age-sex variability in the state of higher mental functions at adults, there are the individual characteristics connected with the effect of the environmental and biological factors interaction.

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