The unique power of women’s brain
Neuroscience experiments (unfortunately) have a historical bias showing results from male brains mostly. Until the last 20-years, it became markedly evident that the female brain shows big differences from the masculine one.
In my reasoning, the bias occurred due to naïve reasons while confronting the huge brain complexity as an organ. This means it was not a sociology-gender-motivation focused on male brains (hopefully, I’m not the naïve now!).
Let’s enter to the topic, some differences that make our brain unique and why occur:
# Sex hormones. Brains receive the hormonal loading associated with our natural gender. Just in think: In our nature, our hormonal cycle is associated with menstruation, with pregnancy, later with menopause. Neuroscientists discovered that cells forming the brain have plenty of receptors for those hormones. As a consequence, cells respond differently.
# Some painkillers (like morphine) are less effective in women than men; the reason resides in the brain.
# Our emotional circuit is different. This brings the advantage that for ladies is easier to develop empathy.
# On average, the male brain is bigger (I am not saying, better or worse, only different). Nonetheless:
# The hippocampus size, a brain region critical for memory tasks and learning, is bigger in women than men (also on average).
# Also, on average, the amygdala size, a region in the brain that is critical for fight response, emotional fears, and some responses of pleasure, is more prominent in men than women.
# Recent Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) studies show that women’s brains have higher interconnectivity levels between local regions and between hemispheres than man’s brains.
Here, I have presented just some points as examples, not the only ones. I dare to say that we know just the crest of the iceberg regarding the brain differences between men and women, which may explain our way of thinking and action.
REFERENCES
An Issue Whose Time Has Come: Sex/Gender Influences on Nervous System Function. Journal of Neuroscience Research. Volume 95, Issue 1-2. Pages: Spc1, 1-791, January/February 2017
An Issue Whose Time Has Come: Sex/Gender Influences on Nervous System Function. Journal of Neuroscience Research. Volume 95, Issue 1-2. Pages: Spc1, 1-791, January/February 2017