Am J Psychiatry 1997; 154:119-121
Copyright © 1997 by American Psychiatric Association
Gender differences in cerebellar metabolism: test-retest reproducibility
ND Volkow, GJ Wang, JS Fowler, R Hitzemann, N Pappas, K Pascani and C Wong
Department of Psychiatry, State University of New York at Stony Brook, USA. volkow@brain.med.bnl.gov
OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study was to evaluate gender differences in
baseline measures of regional brain metabolism and to assess their
reproducibility. METHOD: Fifteen male and 13 female healthy subjects, whose
mean age was 44 years, were tested with positron emission tomography and
[18F]fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) under resting conditions; eight of the men
and 11 of the women underwent a second FDG scan under the same conditions
4-6 weeks later to assess the reproducibility of the previous results.
RESULTS: There were no differences in whole brain metabolism between the
women and the men. In the first evaluation the female subjects showed
significantly higher metabolism in the temporal poles and cerebellum than
the male subjects. During the second evaluation the female subjects had
significantly higher metabolism only in the cerebellum. CONCLUSIONS: This
study documents significant and reproducible gender differences in
cerebellar metabolism; their functional significance merits further
evaluation.
