Gender differences in the neural structures of (non) emotional perspective-taking: A tDCS study

TL;DR

This study investigates gender differences in neural structures involved in emotional and non-emotional perspective-taking using tDCS, revealing distinct roles of rTPJ and vmPFC in men and women.

Contribution

It provides novel insights into gender-specific neural mechanisms underlying perspective-taking, highlighting differential effects of tDCS on rTPJ and vmPFC.

Findings

vmPFC increased emotional perception in men

rTPJ enhanced males' non-emotional perspective performance

rTPJ activation was higher in men than women

Abstract

The perspective-taking in social cognition is an ability that makes third-person judgments about the intentions, beliefs and thoughts of others. We aimed to investigate gender differences in the neural structure differences in (non) emotional perspective-taking ability.Thirty healthy adults (15 females and 15 males) received anodal and sham transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) (2 mA, 15 min) over the right temporoparietal junction (rTPJ) and ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC).Participants underwent a pain visual analog scale, a visuospatial perspective-taking task (VPT) and a self-referential attribution task during stimulation.Findings revealed significant differences between vmPFC and rTPJ anodal tDCS stimulation in emotional perspective-taking.Primarily the vmPFC increased emotional perception in comparison with the rTPJ cite.This emotional perception pattern was significant only for men. The rTPJ enhanced the males' non-emotional perspective ability performance compared to their female contributors.The results indicated that both the rTPJ and vmPFC are associated with self-referential processing (SRP).The vmPFC increased Self Emotional bias negatively while rTPJ increased it positively.The vmPFC and rTPJ play a role in (non) emotional perspective-taking in men.While the vmPFC increased men's emotional perspective-taking compared to rTPJ.The rTPJ excitatory stimulation enhanced males' performance compared to females.Moreover, it indicated that the rTPJ posterior cluster activation in men is higher than in women.