Women but Not Men Exhibit a Positive Correlation between Complex Partial Epileptic-Like Signs and Tactile-Visual Cross-Modal Matching: Implications for Hemispheric Intercalation

Abstract

16 right-handed men and 19 women were asked to feel various sized wooden cubes with the dominant hand for 2 sec. (without visual feedback) and then to select this cube from a random visual arrangement of cubes (tactile-visual matching) after a brief delay. The accuracy for men and women for this task did not differ significantly; however, the accuracy was significantly correlated ( rho = 0.61) with a history of complex partial epileptic-like signs for the women but not for the men. The results support the hypothesis that elevated scores for complex partial epileptic-like signs in right-handed women enhance their capacity to associate different perceptual domains of the same stimuli because there is elevated activity within the (multimodal) hippo-campal-amygdaloid system (sensory-limbic hyperconnectionism) and the correlative enhanced intercalation between the right and left temporoparietal lobes.