A voxel-by-voxel parametric fMRI study of motor mental rotation: hemispheric specialization and gender differences in neural processing efficiency.

Differences between men and women in brain size, cognitive performance and lateralization of brain activation have been perennial and controversial issues. Here we show that in a motor mental rotation task where women and men performed equally well, the slope of the functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) blood oxygenation level dependent (BOLD) signal per degree of mental rotation was overall 2.4x higher in men than in women.