Sex differences in cerebral organization for speech and praxic functions.

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
A retrospective study on incidence of aphasia and apraxia was done on 216 right-handed patients with unilateral lesions of the left cerebral hemisphere and on a subgroup of 81 patients with damage restricted to anterior or posterior regions. Aphasia was proportionally more frequent in males than in females, but this difference was significant only in the larger sample. The pattern of speech representation differed between the sexes. Speech disorders and manual apraxia occurred in women more often from damage to the anterior part of the left hemisphere than from posterior damage. This was not true for men. In 169 patients with unilateral right-hemisphere damage, the incidence of aphasia was extremely low and did not differentiate the sexes. There are sex differences in the organization of speech and praxis within the left hemisphere, and speech is not simply more bilaterally organized in women than in men.