It is often said that women are smarter than men. Is this a scientific fact that has been proven? A new study is showing just how different the male and female brains really are.
Daniel Amen, MD and his team of researchers completed the largest brain scan study ever and found some interesting differences that affect emotions, longevity, business success, and even memory.
Images of 26,000 participants were analyzed for this study. One of the first findings was that women showed an increased blood flow in 112 of the 128 regions of the brain. This indicates that women’s brains are more active than men’s.
Women’s brains showed a higher level of activity in the prefrontal cortex which is often referred to as the CEO of the brain because of its many functions. It takes care of organization, planning, impulse control and learning from mistakes. Men’s brains showed more activity in the regions that deal with visualization, form recognition, and tracking objects through space. This does not mean necessarily that one gender is brighter than the other, it simply means that the brains operate differently between the two genders.
Dr. Amen stated that when a man and a woman complete the same task, they are calling upon different areas of the brain to do so. On average, men have larger brains than women, often 8-10% larger. This is most likely because men have a larger body frame than women do. However the size is not distributed evenly as women have a larger prefrontal cortex and larger limbic cortex (deals with emotions).
Another large difference between men and women is that women tend to have better memories (any man who has done something wrong in the past can attest to this!) but they have a worse sense of direction.
Women are also found to behave less recklessly than men, and in essence live longer because they are more careful about their behavior. They also have a lower instance of having a disease such as ADD or anti-social personality disorders.