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What are the main differences between male and female brains?

2024-01-19 18:08:56Lifestyle SHKRUAR NGA THOMAS R.VERNY
What are the main differences between male and female brains?
What are the main differences between male and female brains?

We live in a small town in Ontario, Canada, where there is a farmer's market every Saturday. I like to go early in the morning to buy flowers. Usually the night before I ask my wife if there is anything in particular she wants me to buy.

She can say "eggs" or "make sure they didn't bring wild blueberries."

As soon as I enter the weekly market, I go straight to the stand of my favorite flowers and buy them. Then I go to the egg stand and ask for "a dozen large brown beans". I pay and see that they didn't bring wild berries, but I can't find anything.

Then I go back to the car. The whole trip, on a nice day without much traffic, takes me about 25-30 minutes. When my wife goes to the market, she can spend at least 2, 3 or more hours there. At first I asked him (now that I understood the reason; I don't ask him anymore): "Why were you so late?". He answered me: "Well, I talk to the farmers, I ask them where they come from and what else they grow." I look for special vegetables like zucchini flowers. I can then look online for recipes and expand the variety of foods I cook. I like to stay for a long time in front of the stands, I enjoy the feeling that the colors and aromas create for me. Sometimes I meet some acquaintances and we chat, or we can sit and have a coffee.”

Two very different experiences, but very stereotypical about the differences between how men and women think and act. These differences are due to many factors, mainly genetic, biological, educational, social and cultural.

Currently, about 100 gender differences have been identified in the brain 'architecture' of women and men. Due to lack of space, in this article I will focus on 5 of the main differences. Starting from the first 3 months, in men the development of the brain directed by neurohormones is slower compared to women.

This constitutes the longest period of development of social responsiveness and regulation of feelings in boys. So the brains of baby boys are stunted in development compared to that of girls. This is reflected in the early relationships of boys with their mothers or guardians.

By age 1, girls show a greater preference for interactions with mothers and caregivers, make more eye contact, and show more emotional sensitivity and interest in people than boys of the same age.

Examining newborns and infants up to 2 months of age in Boston, Edward Tronick and T. Berry Brazelton concluded that "boys are more demanding social partners, they have a harder time regulating their affective states (emotions), and may need their mother's support more to help them regulate their feelings”. And this increased demand affected the infant boy's interactive partner. Bonding will take a little longer and be a little more difficult for boys than for girls. If a mother's first child was a girl, she would wonder why her second child, this time a boy, was much more "difficult".

This label, whether communicated in words or actions, can leave a permanent mark on the boy's unconscious mind, with quite a few emotional problems later to follow. So you can see how brain changes, from an early age, make girls more social and observant than boys.

Adults, especially mothers, grandmothers, aunts, etc., will respond in kind, reinforcing girls' pro-social behavior, while fathers and other male relatives will become wilder and more physical with children. their male counterparts, inducing in them the thought and sense of action.

Studying the adult brain helps explain some notable differences in the way women and men approach the world. Recent research from the University of Pennsylvania in the US found that women typically have a larger corpus callosum than men.

The corpus callosum forms a bridge of communication between the left and right hemispheres of the brain. As a result, the female brain exhibits extensive connections between the left and right hemispheres. Greater cross-hemispheric connectivity in females facilitates the integration of left-hemisphere analytical and sequential reasoning modes with right-hemisphere spatial and intuitive information processing.

This type of structure can facilitate social communication and intuition. Meanwhile, the male brain with a smaller corpus callosum promotes greater neural connectivity along the posterior-anterior dimension, which involves linking perception to action.

It has long been known that women have better verbal memory and social cognition on average, while men have better motor and spatial skills. Brain scans explain this: women tend to have verbal centers on both sides of the brain, while men often have verbal centers only in the left hemisphere.

This is probably also why women use more words when describing experiences or feelings, and are more interested in talking about these things. Analyzing data from 168 studies with 355,173 participants, Marco Hirnstein of the University of Bergen found a small but significant advantage for women in verbal fluency and verbal-episodic memory.

The advantage is small but stable over the last 50 years, even relative to the life expectancy of an individual. Furthermore, they found that women's advantage over men depends on the gender of the lead scientist of the study in question: female scientists report a greater advantage of their own gender, while male researchers report a smaller advantage over women.

As we review these studies, we must keep in mind that they are statistical generalizations and do not apply to every man or woman. Because everyone is to some extent on a continuum between the typical male and female brain.

And regardless of gender, each person's unique experiences and environment play a very important role in shaping their abilities and behaviors. It is important to remember that all differences have advantages and disadvantages. I think Ruben Gur from the University of Pennsylvania summed it up best: "It's amazing how complementary women's and men's brains are."

Source: Psychology Today.

* Thomas R. Verny is the author of eight books and a lecturer at Harvard, Toronto and York Universities.


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