Grant: Discovery Grants Program - Individual

TITLE: Characterizing neural profiles in males gender conscious’ lens.Females have historically been largely excluded from neuroscience (and, more globally, medical) research due, in large part, to the fact that fluctuating hormones may influence neural features, and thus need to be controlled for. When females are included, hormonal effects are generally not considered when interpreting results, creating a bias in research. In the proposed program, neural profiles will be examined during resting-states as well as during a spatial rotation and facial expression recognition task; these domains have been shown to exhibit subtle behavioural differences between the sexes. Morphometric brain features will also be examined (cortical thickness/structural volume). This research will be conducted using electroencephalography (EEG) and EEG-derived event-related potentials (ERPs), as well as neuroimaging approaches. The exquisite temporal resolution of ERPs allows for assessment of pre-conscious cortical processes, such as automatic visual detection of emotive stimuli, and more cognitive, later-occurring, neuronal processes. EEG/ERP data is extremely rich, and can be analyzed in several ways. Thus, a multiplexed approach in analyzing EEG/ERP data can greatly advance our understanding of male and female brains, and how such neural profiles are related to sex hormones; this will be the focus of Part A of this program. Part B, will capitalize on the superb spatial resolution of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data to gain insight into the neural regions associated with emotional/cognitive processing, as well as during resting-states, in males and females. This data will be analyzed in conjunction with simultaneously recorded EEG/ERP indices. Together, this information will provide the most holistic and rich picture of the distinct/overlapping features of male/female brains, and how they relate to sex hormones.