Men's and Women's Brains are Wired Differently

It's a fact: Men's and women's brains are wired differently.

Such was the result of a study of nearly 1,000 individuals between the ages of 8-22 led by researchers from the University of Pennsylvania's Perelman School of Medicine.

To carry out the experiment, the scientists used a water-based imaging technique known as diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) to trace the fiber pathways that connect different regions of the brain.

While few differences were found between boys and girls younger than 13 years old, this changed as the age of the participant increased, with the differences becoming most pronounced in adolescents between 14-17 and young adults older than 17.

In females, the brain showed greater connectivity from the right to left hemispheres, suggesting greater communication between the analytical and intuition, the researchers said. The males, on the other hand, had greater neural connectivity from front to back and within one hemisphere, suggesting greater connectivity between perception and coordinated action.

This makes sense, the researchers note, given that men on average are better at learning and carrying out a single task, such as cycling or navigating directions, while women are better at memory and social cognition skills.

"It's quite striking how complementary the brains of women and men really are," co-author Dr. Ruben Gur said in a statement. "Detailed connectome maps of the brain will not only help us better understand the differences between how men and women think, but it will also give us more insight into the roots of neurological disorders, which are often sex related."

Going forward, the researchers plan on looking at how an individual's neural connections differ from the population and see whether studies using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) yield similar results.

The findings were published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.