Do Men and Women Have Different Brains?

While it’s not exactly true that men are from Mars and women from Venus, scientific evidence shows they are wired differently Anecdotally speaking, men tend to gravitate toward math and science disciplines, while women lean toward excellence at language.

To study brain connectivity, researchers use a type of scan called DTI, a technique that maps the diffusion of water molecules within brain tissue, tracing fiber pathways that connect different regions of the brain .Female brains contain about 9.5 times as much white matter, the substance that connects various parts of the brain. The bridge of nerve tissue that connects the right and left side of the brain is stronger in women, perhaps explaining why they are more equipped for multitasking. Women activate both the left and right hemispheres

when listening to language. The frontal area and the temporal area of the cortex are bigger and better organized, helping women score better on attention, facial recognition, and social cognition. Women are faster and more accurate when identifying emotions and seem better at controlling them .In contrast, men tend to focus on a single issue and excel at it. Studies of male brains show fewer connections between the right and left hemispheres. Male brains are about 10 percent larger than female brains and contain about 6.5 times more gray matter, or “thinking matter.” Men appear to be better at special processing, meaning that they are more aware of where they sit on a map (and also that they are less likely to ask for directions). They rely on the hippocampus to place where they are, whereas women tend to rely on landmarks. But it’s not all good news for the male sex —men are more susceptible to attention deficit disorder and lack of impulse control.

Despite these differences, women and men still have a lot in common. “All of these things have overlapping distributions. There are many women with better-thanaverage spatial skills, and men with good writing skills,” says David Geary professor of psychological services at the University of Missouri. Some researchers argue that exercising one’s brain, especially at a young age, can enhance areas of difficulty. Most importantly, while men and women take different routes, they perform equally well on broad measures of cognitive ability.

Comments

What Causes Volcanic Lightning?

On March 10, 2010, Eyjafjallajökull volcano, a caldera in Iceland covered by an ice cap, erupted. It sent plumes of clouds across most of Europe and the Atlantic Ocean. Photos of the eruption show lightning originating and ending in the cloud of ash that hovered over the volcanic opening. The largest volcanic storms are similar to supercell thunderstorms that spread across the American Midwest. But while those thunderstorms are fairly well understood, volcanic lightning still remains mysterious. The remote location of volcanoes and infrequent eruptions make volcanic lightning difficult to study. In general, lightning occurs through the separation of positively and negatively charged particles. Differences in the aerodynamics of the particles separate the positive and negative. When the difference in charge is great, electrons flow between the positive and negative regions. A lightning bolt is a natural way of correcting the charge distributi...

What Is the Moon Illusion?

The Moon seems larger when it is near the horizon than when it is high in the sky, a phenomenon called the Moon illusion. Although recognized for centuries—the horizon Moon was important to early civilizations that functioned according to the Moon’s cycle—this ancient phenomenon has only recently been explained. Early astronomers believed the Moon at the horizon was physically closer to Earth than when it was high in the sky, and the closeness meant a larger Moon. However, Newton’s description of the Moon’s orbit showed the contrary to be true. The Moon Is actually closest to the observer at its zenith, or when it is high in the sky, but the difference is so small that it is negligible anyhow. Others theorized that the Moon illusion was caused by refraction when light rays passed through more of Earth’s atmosphere. Today, scientists guess that the illusion occurs not externally, but through a trick of our brains. Optical illusions p...

Is the Y Chromosome Doomed?

Humans store their genes in 23 pairs of chromosomes, 22 of which are identically matched. The 23rd is a two-sided biological coin—twin Xs mean you’re female; an X and a Y, male. Chromosome pairs often trade bits of DNA in a process called recombination, the purpose of which is to keep genes functioning properly. Talk of men’s path toward extinction began in the late 1990s, when it was discovered that the human Y chromosome, which is stumpy compared with the X, does not share enough genetic material with the X to practice recombination. Left without a way to renew damaged genes, the Y would continue to degrade and would eventually disappear, geneticists announced. They slapped an expiration date on the male half of the species of sometime in the next 5 to 10 million years. To get a perspective on this prediction, scientists looked to our closest genetic relatives—the chimps. Because humans and chimpanzees shared a common ancestor 6 million years ago, genet...

knowledge

Search This Blog