There’s hot scientific debate about whether men are from Mars and women from Venus—or if male and female brains are actually wired similarly.
“You can’t pick up a brain and say ‘that’s a girl’s brain, or that’s a boy’s brain’ in the same way you can with the skeleton,” Professor Gina Rippon, of Aston University in the UK, told The Telegraph. “They look the same.”
Yet a new study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) found distinctive sex differences in neural maps of brain scans from 949 youths that seem to reinforce traditional gender stereotypes. A number of other studies have also reported striking differences in male and female brains.
However, some critics contend that such research may be scientifically flawed or place too much emphasis on minor variations in men’s and women’s brains. Prof. Rippon believes that culture and environment—not innate difference in mental circuitry—explain gender differences in brain activity.
Still, some researchers report that they can distinguish between men’s and women’s brain scans with 70 to 99 percent accuracy, remarks Daniel Amen, MD, who recently completed the largest brain-imaging analysis conducted to date, which included 48,000 brain SPECT scans of men and women of all ages.
Who’s right? Here’s a look at some of the latest findings about male and female brains.
Women excel at multi-tasking, but men are better at reading maps
In the PNAS study, scientists from University of Pennsylvania reported that female brains appear to be hardwired for social skills, memory, and intuitive thinking, while male brains are optimized for perception and coordinated actions.
The findings suggest that on average, women are better equipped for multi-tasking, while men are more wired for such skills as athletic performance and reading maps, the researchers say.
The scientists used a technology called diffusion tensor imaging to create maps of the neural connections in the brains of 521 females and 428 males ages eight to 22.
Men’s brains are bigger, but that doesn’t make them smarter
Studies show that on average, men’s brains are about 10 percent larger than women’s, even when differences in body size are taken into account, says Dr. Amen, author of Unleash the Power of the Female Brain. “However, in this case, size really doesn’t matter, because women’s brains are busier.”
Specifically, Dr. Amen’s soon-to-be-published study shows that the female brain has particularly high levels of activity in the prefrontal cortex, a region sometimes known as “the brain’s CEO,” because it controls planning, organizing, self-control, and learning from mistakes, among other tasks.
Men, on the other hand, show greater activity in brain regions that regulate visual perception, the ability to track objects through space, and form recognition. But such variations don’t give either sex a mental edge, since men and women use their brains differently to achieve similar results.
Male/female brain differences start before birth—and persist in adulthood
A 2012 study published in Journal of Neuroscience reported that (natural) exposure to testosterone before birth has a dramatic effect on childhood brain development.
The researchers report that prenatal variations in levels of this hormone predicted the amount of gray matter in specific brain regions in boys and girls, with males having a larger volume of gray matter in these areas, compared to females.
An earlier study of adults also reported that while there are no disparities in men and women’s overall intelligence, there are major sex variations in which brain areas are involved in intellectual performance.
Men have about 6.5 times more gray matter relative to white matter in areas related to intelligence and men have nearly 10 times more white matter in these areas. Gray matter can be compared to information processing centers in the brain, while white matter consists of networking connections between these centers.
Women worry more, but it helps them outlive men
Women have about 50 percent less serotonin—a calming brain chemical—than men do, reports Dr. Amen. This may explain why women worry more than men do, develop depression at double the rate men do, and also have higher risk for anxiety disorders.
However, appropriate worry also has health benefits, points out Dr. Amen. “In the longest study of factors that influence longevity, it was fond that the ‘don’t worry, be happy’ people—more typically men—died earlier from accidents and preventable illnesses.”
However, while worry is beneficial in small doses, it can escalate into toxic stress, which can lead to illness.
Dr. Nadira Mehriban
Assistant Professor & Medical Officer
Department Of Public Health
Source:yahoo.health
