Men's Brains Are Different From Women's Brains

If you think that men’s brains are same as women’s brains, think again. Although there are cultural reasons for differences in emotions and behavior, recent breakthrough research reveals that the root of many puzzling gender differences may lie in our heads. Men’s and women’s brains have much in common, but they are definitely not the same in size, structure or sensitivities. Overall, a women’s brain, like her body, is ten to 15 percent smaller than a men’s, yet the regions dedicated to higher cognition such as language may be more densely packed with neurons.

Women use more of their brains: Whatever women do, even just wiggling their thumbs, their neuron activity is more greatly distributed throughout the brain. When a man puts his mind to work, neurons turn on in highly specific areas of the brain. When a woman does, her brain cells light up such a patchwork that the scans look like a night view of Las Vegas. Yet, at least in some instances, men may be better able to focus intensely. This may explain why my husband can immerse himself in a book while the phone rings.

A women’s brain responds more intensely to emotion: When experts scanned the brains of men and women as they recalled emotional experiences, they found the sexes respond differently to emotions, especially sadness. The way our brains react to sadness may, at least in theory, increase vulnerability to depression, which is twice as common in women as in men. The female brain also detects other’s emotions more accurately. Both sexes knew happiness when they saw it, but the men had a much harder time recognizing sadness than women. A women’s face had to be really sad for a man to see it.

Women have a way with words: Girls generally speak sooner and read faster. The reason may be that females are neural regions on both sides of the brain when they read. In contrast, males use neural regions only in the left hemisphere. As adults, women also tend to be more verbally adept. Perhaps even more important: the female brain’s dual hemisphere language processing helps women who suffer stroke or brain injury recover more easily. Because women activate a larger network of neurons than men when they speak or read. They’re less vulnerable if part of the brain is damaged.

Women navigate differently from men: On the road, women pay more attention to what they see. When retracing a route or giving directions, women rely on many landmarks which they have seen earlier on this route while men think in terms of directions and distance. It may explain why my husband can park a van in a space the size of a postage stamp.

A women’s memory is sharper: At every age, women’s memories outperform men’s, a research organization that has tested the memories of more than 50,000 men and women. Women’s have a greater ability to associate names with faces than men do, and they’re also better at recalling lists.

The brain ages more slowly for women: The study shows that male brain shrinks faster than the female brain. An expert also adds that men do get grumpier with old age. The reason that men’s brains change size so drastically may have to do with fuel efficiency. The female brain seems able to reduce its metabolic rate, that is, its use of brain glucose over time, whereas older men metabolize glucose at higher rates than when they were younger.

While we don’t yet know the implications of all findings, one thing is clear that male and female brains do the same things. But they do them differently.