Neuropsychological performance based on gender and natural variations in sexual hormones: a review

Different studies have shown the existence of sex differences in neuropsychological performance, as well as the influence of sexual hormones on it. In this paper a review of findings in this line of research from 1980 to 2007 is carried out starting from bibliographical search in Medline and PsycInfo databases. Results show that men outperform women in spatial tasks, mathematical abilities and abstract reasoning while women excel verbal abilities, precision motor skills, perception and memory. Moreover evidence suggests that natural variations in sexual hormones levels affect men’s and women’s performance in these tasks. We conclude that sex-related neuropsychological performance patterns may also remain sensitive to natural variations in sexual hormones levels, and consequently we highlight the need to analyze the relationship among sex and hormonal fluctuations taking it into account in future research on the field