Sports-Related and Gender Differences on Neuropsychological Measures of Frontal Lobe Functioning

OBJECTIVETo determine similarities and differences in the performance of female and male athletes on neuropsychological measures of frontal lobe functioning. DESIGNA cross-sectional study of male and female college-aged athletes involved in one of the following sportshockey, basketball, softball, lacrosse, soccer, swimming, and track. SETTINGDivision III college. PARTICIPANTSA total of 262 athletes (male, n = 157; female, n = 105) participated in the study. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURESControlled Oral Word Association (letters F, A, S), Cognitive Assessment System (Planned Codes, Planned Connections, Number Detection), and WAIS-R-NI Vocabulary were administered to all athletes. RESULTSMANCOVA was performed with gender and sport as fixed factors. Female athletes displayed faster and more accurate performance on perceptual-motor tasks (P < 0.01) and on one condition of a verbal fluency task (P < 0.01) compared with male athletes. Male hockey athletes showed superior perceptual-motor speed and accuracy (P < 0.01) compared with male athletes in the track/swimming group. Evaluators were naive to athletes’ gender and sport. CONCLUSIONGender- and sport-specific performances on perceptual-motor and verbal fluency tasks were found. Adding cognitive components to base functions eliminates gender- and sports-related distinctions, suggesting that existing differences are related to basic, fundamental skills, which are inherent and practiced within the respective sport. Understanding the differences and similarities across sports and gender on various neurocognitive measures is relevant for determining group differences in studies examining the consequences of mild traumatic brain injury among athletes.