Abstract
Sex differences in various aspects of behaviour and cognition have been widely observed. Few studies, however, have explored potential sex differences in maintaining a balanced time perspective or their underlying neural correlates. To address these questions, two studies were conducted. In Study 1, time perspective was assessed in 1913 college students (796 males and 1117 females), revealing that females had a significantly more balanced time perspective relative to males. In Study 2, 58 males and 47 females underwent an assessment of time perspective and structural brain imaging. Voxel-based morphometry analysis and cortical thickness analysis were conducted to explore associations between the structural imaging data and balanced time perspective. Compared with males, females demonstrated a more balanced time perspective in the context of lower grey matter volume in the bilateral precuneus, right cerebellum, right putamen and left supplementary motor area. Analysis of cortical thickness failed to reveal any significant sex differences. Furthermore, lower grey matter volume of bilateral precuneus was associated with more balanced time perspective among all participants. Our findings point to a critical role for the precuneus in modulating a balanced time perspective, and extend our understanding of sex differences in human cognition. Future studies are required to determine whether sex differences in balanced time perspective are predictive of functional outcomes in daily life.
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The datasets are available from the corresponding author upon request.
Notes
\(DBTP=\sqrt{{(oPN-ePN)}^{2}+{(oPP-ePP)}^{2}+{(oPF-ePF)}^{2}+{(oPH-ePH)}^{2}+{(oF-eF)}^{2}}\)
oPN (1.95), oPP (4.60), oPF (1.50), oPH (3.90), oF (4.00) were optimal scores of Past-Negative, Past-Positive, Present-Fatalistic, Present-Hedonistic, and Future time perspective, respectively. ePN, ePP, ePF, ePH, eF were empirical scores reported by participants (Stolarski et al., 2015).
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YW is supported by National Science Foundation of China (32071062), MI is supported by an Australian Research Council Future Fellowship (FT160100096), and RCK is supported by the Philip KH Wong Foundation.
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Conception and study design (TC, MI and YW), data collection or acquisition (ZL, JH, YW and RCK), statistical analysis (TC, JH, MI), interpretation of results (TC, MI, YW and RCK), drafting the manuscript work or revising it critically for important intellectual content (TC, JFC, MI, YW and RCK) and approval of final version to be published and agreement to be accountable for the integrity and accuracy of all aspects of the work (All authors).
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Chen, T., Li, Z., Cui, Jf. et al. The neural substrates of sex differences in balanced time perspective: A unique role for the precuneus. Brain Imaging and Behavior 16, 2239–2247 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11682-022-00694-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11682-022-00694-x