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Are Men’s and Women’s Brains Equal?
More than a decade ago, the bestselling book Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus came out as a guide to help improve relationships between the opposite sexes.
The book became an instant hit because the author, John Gray, wrote about the differences between men and women rather than trying to point out the similarities.
Throughout history, the difference between men and women has been the subject of endless debate. In the sexist point of view, men are superior over women. Politically correct thinking and equality has since erased this notion.
Of course, we would all agree that men and women are physically different. The tangible factors like anatomy, height, weight, size and shape are easily measured. However, the differences between how men and women think is a completely different story.
Who Has The Better Brain?
While many of us would like to think that all of our brains are fundamentally the same, research shows that men and women have different brain structures and use their brains differently.
A possible factor would be hormonal influence. Men have more testosterone and women more estrogen, which both influence brain development.
Scientists already know that men and women have slightly different brains, but for many years they thought the differences were limited to the hypothalamus, the part of your brain that maintains the body’s status quo, controlling a number of bodily functions including body temperature, food intake and sex drive.
In 2001, researchers discovered that certain parts of the brain were different in size in males and females. They found that parts of the frontal lobe, which is used in problem-solving and decision-making, and the limbic cortex, used for regulating emotions, were larger in women, while the parietal cortex, which is involved in space perception, and the amygdala, which regulates sexual and social behavior, were larger in men.
Men also have approximately 6.5 times more gray matter in the brain than women, while women have about 10 times more white matter than men. Gray matter is full of active neurons, while white matter consists more of connections between the neurons. This probably explains the differences in how men and women think.
If you’ve watched the hilarious video on YouTube about men’s and women’s brains, according to pastor Mark Gungor, men’s brains contain “boxes that don’t touch one another” while women’s brains are like wire, which touches and connects with everything.
It’s a good description of the differences between the amount of gray matter and white matter that men’s and women’s brains contain because this may explain the stereotype that women multitask better due to their many “connections.”
And, even though women’s brains are slightly smaller, the neurons in women’s brains are packed densely and are situated closer to one another. In fact, some women may have as much as 12 percent more neurons than men do, and the close proximity between these neurons increase their processing speed.
It’s also interesting to find out that men and women use different sections of their brain to perform the same task. The human brain is so complex that there is more than one way to arrive at the same road. The beauty of it is that it’s not necessary for men and women to think alike in order to reach the same conclusion or answer. It also has no impact on overall intelligence because both sexes have the same average IQ scores.
So much for the discussion on men’s and women’s brains, let’s take a look now at …
3 Busted Brain Myths
• You only use 10 percent of your brain
This has been probably been around for the longest time and has proliferated over the past century due to misinterpretations of neuroscience discoveries and unsubstantiated quotes by both scientists and laypeople.
The brain is only one percent of our body by weight but it burns up to 10 percent of our energy. Why? Because we use virtually 100 percent of our brains everyday!
For example, you’re munching on a sandwich while reading this blog. As you read, the frontal lobes in your cerebral cortex are thinking and reasoning, your parietal lobes are savoring the taste, texture and smell of your food, the occipital lobes help process how you see the words on this page, and the temporal lobes help process what you hear – like the chewing of the sandwich and the typing on your keyboard.
Your cerebellum allows you to hold the sandwich in your hand (or in your mouth) as well as anything else you’re doing that needs balance and coordination. You are also breathing, digesting your food and circulating blood. You might be feeling cold because of the airconditioning. Your hippocampus will help you remember what you’re reading. Your brain is bustling with all this activity just for one simple task.
• Your brain stops growing as you mature
Brain volume was believed to stop expanding as you enter your twenties and that each person was born with a fixed number of brain cells. But MRI brain scans revealed that white matter in the brain continues to increase until people are in their forties.
It turns out that your brain is more like a muscle and continues to develop over time. Your brain keeps growing in the temporal lobe and frontal lobes – the parts of your brain that largely differentiates humans from animals.
Scientists also discovered that your brain can repair itself by growing new cells – something that was thought to be impossible until the 1990s. Before, many believed that if you damage your brain, it could no longer be fixed and you would have to live with a deficit for the rest of your life.
However, recent findings show that the brain can rewire or change itself in response to new learning, and can even generate new cells through a process called neurogenesis.
To prove that brain cells regenerate, in 1998 scientists used a substance that identifies dividing cells in a group of terminal cancer patients. Postmortem examinations found that the substance was attached to new cells in the hippocampus. This discovery not only disproves the myth that we are born with a fixed number of brain cells, it also gives hope to victims of brain injury caused by either diseases or trauma.
• Some people are left-brained, some people are right-brained
The idea of a left-right split came from studies of split brain patients in the 1960′s, when doctors treated epilepsy patients by severing their corpus collosum, the cord connecting the left hemisphere of the brain to the right. Neuroscientists studied these patients, who became a rich source of data on brain functions, and found information presented to the left side resulted in performing some tasks – ” left brain tasks” – satisfactorily, while different tasks could be done by the right hand side.
This led to the myth that left-brained people are rational, methodical and details oriented while right brained people are creative, big picture types.
Research continues into the differences between the two halves of the brain but it is not true that there are people who use one side more than the other. Sure, some people are more rational while others are more intuitive but these differences have nothing to do with what side of the brain they use more because we use all of its parts.
Now, since your brain keeps maturing in adulthood, regardless if you are male or female, you should avoid alcohol abuse, drug use, poor nutrition and other damaging activities to help your brain from reach its full development. Always make it a habit to stimulate and challenge your brain to promote its growth, just as exercise builds muscle.
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Tags: brain, brain health, brain myths
