Brain Anatomy -  Men& Women

                                                                 Are we wired differently??!!                                                                                  

                                                                                                                  

              The brain is the boss of your body, it runs the show and controls just about everything you do, even when you are asleep. Not bad for something that looks like a big, wrinkly, gray sponge. It is so complex that some theorists believe that we will never be able to fully understand it. However, some scientists think that the right half of the brain helps you think about abstract things like music, colors, and shapes, when the left half is said to be more analytical, helping you with math, logic, and speech; the right half of the cerebrum controls the left side of your body, and the left half controls the right side.

               The brain is made primarily of two different types of tissue, called gray matter and white matter. In human brains, gray matter represents information processing centers, whereas white matter works to network these processing centers.

A new research carried out by Rex Jung Neuropsychologist of the University of New Mexico, reveals that men think more with their gray matter, and women think more with white. Their findings show that in general, men have nearly 6.5 times the amount of gray matter related to general intelligence compared with women, whereas women have nearly 10 times the amount of white matter related to intelligence compared to men. These findings suggest that human evolution has created two different types of brains designed for equally intelligent behavior.

               The male brain is characterized by systemizing tendencies – the drive to analyse, explore, and construct a system and intuitively figures out how things work. In contrast, the female brain is characterized by empathizing tendencies – the drive to identify another person’s emotions and thoughts, and to respond to them with an appropriate emotion.

              Anyone can perceive that men and women think different, feel different, behave different and do things differently. It is absurd to pretend that we are equal in those regards. Today’s society keeps on hammering that we are equal, but while we are equal in value as humans, we are also different!!

While women and men might struggle to communicate with each other, careful research in evolutionary psychology and related fields has uncovered the distinct ways that men’s minds and women’s minds operate, scientists learned that there may exist a great deal of neurophysiological and anatomical differences between the brains of males and females. The results from these studies may help explain why men and women excel at different types of tasks:

o    Human relationships:

·         Women tend to communicate more effectively than men, utilizing non-verbal cues such as tone, emotion, and empathy.

·         Men tend to be more task-oriented, less talkative, and more isolated.

·         Men have a more difficult time understanding emotions that are not explicitly verbalized, while women tend to intuit emotions and emotional cues.

o    Left brain vs. both hemispheres:

·         Men tend to process better in the left hemisphere of the brain while women tend to process equally well between the two hemispheres (men are generally stronger approaching problem-solving while women typically solve problems more creatively and are more aware of feelings while communicating).

o    Mathematical abilities:

·         The inferior-parietal lobule (IPL) is typically significantly larger in men, especially on the left side, than in women. This section of the brain is thought to control mental mathematical ability, and probably explains why men frequently perform higher in mathematical tasks than do women.

·         The IPL also processes sensory information, and the larger right side in women allows them to focus on specific stimuli.

o    Reaction to stress:

·         Men tend to have a "fight or flight" response to stress situations while women seem to approach these situations with a "tend and befriend" strategy.

·         The reason for these different reactions to stress is rooted in hormones. The hormone oxytocin is released during stress in everyone. However, oestrogen tends to enhance oxytocin resulting in calming and nurturing feelings whereas testosterone, which men produce in high levels during stress, reduces the effects of oxytocin.

o    Language:

·         The two sections of the brain are responsible for language, were found to be larger in women than in men (women typically excel in language-based subjects/ language-associated thinking).

·         Men typically only process language in their dominant hemisphere, whereas women process language in both hemispheres.

·          So women may be able to recover more fully from a stroke affecting the language areas in the brain while men may not have this same advantage.

o    Emotions:

·         Women typically have a larger deep limbic system than men, which allows them to be more in touch with their feelings and better able to express them, which promotes bonding with others (more women serve as caregivers for children).

·         The down side to this larger deep limbic system is that it also opens women up to depression, especially during times of hormonal shifts.

o    Brain size:

·         Typically, men’s brains are 11-12% bigger than women’s brains. This size difference has absolutely nothing to do with intelligence, but is explained by the difference in physical size between men and women. Men need more neurons to control their greater muscle mass and larger body size, thus generally have a larger brain.

o    Pain:

·         In studies, women require more morphine than men to reach the same level of pain reduction.

·         Women are also more likely to vocalize their pain and to seek treatment for their pain than are men.

·         The area of the brain that is activated during pain is the amygdala, and researchers have discovered that in men, the right amygdala is activated and in women, the left amygdala. This difference probably explains why women perceive pain more intensely than do men.

o    Spatial ability:

·         Men typically have stronger spatial abilities, or being able to mentally represent a shape and its dynamics, whereas women typically struggle in this area.

o    Susceptibility to disorders:

·         Men are more apt to have dyslexia or other language problems. If women have dyslexia, they are more likely to compensate for it.

·         Women are more susceptible to mood disorders such as depression and anxiety.

·         Men are also more likely to be diagnosed with autism, ADHD and Tourette’s syndrome.

              On the whole, these sex differences are adaptive; sometimes manifest themselves in comical ways. For example, men’s greater tendency towards systemizing means that they often try to “figure out” their relationships as if they are logical systems or a carburettor!! Similarly, women often talk to their cars and coffee machines as if they had minds and feelings!! Generalizations are hard to change though; common stereotypes characterize men as aggressive and characterize women as emotionally, which have been shown to affect a person’s behavior.  

              Well, we really need to be different in order to complement each other and conform as a couple! Men and women are different because their brains function in different ways, we seem to be wired differently!! Therefore we should be taking advantage of the strengths of one another, in order to build a better society for all of us!  At the end of the day, it is not the brains that matter most, but that which guides them—the character, the heart … kindness, generous qualities, progressive ideas and so on.

        

References:

Brace, N., Byford J., (2010),Investigating Psychology, Milton Keynes, The Open University