Gender based variation in cognitive functions in adolescent subjects

BACKGROUND Cognition can be defined as all mental activities that are involved in acquisition, processing, storage and retrieval of information. PURPOSE There is paucity of the data related to cognitive function amongst healthy adolescent age group which limits our ability to distinguish and compare cognitive changes that occur across the adult lifespan in female and male subjects separately and can provide some help to understand dementia related conditions. METHODS Cognitive function was assessed in 100 healthy subjects of each sex of 17-20 years by using 'Montreal Cognition Assessment Test', a 10 minutes: 30-points test which is used in assessing a wide range of cognitive abilities on 7 subscales : 1) Visuospatial Skills, 2) Language, 3) Memory, 4) Attention, 5) Mathematical ability, 6) Abstraction, and 7) Orientation. RESULTS Overall score (Male: 25.16 ± 1.8, Female: 25.72 ± 1.8) of cognition functions was statistically significantly higher in female adolescents (p=<0.02). However male subjects showed higher score in Mathematical ability. CONCLUSION There are variations in the cognitive functions in male and female individuals and neuroanatomical and physiological differences contribute to these variations.