It’s no secret that boys and girls are different—very different. The differences between genders, however, extend beyond what the eye can see. Research reveals major distinguishers between male and female brains.
Scientists generally study four primary areas of difference in male and female brains: processing, chemistry, structure, and activity. The differences between male and female brains in these areas show up all over the world, but scientists also have discovered exceptions to every so-called gender rule. You may know some boys who are
very sensitive,
immensely talkative about feelings, and
just generally don’t seem to fit the “boy” way of doing things.
As with all gender differences, no one way of doing things is better or worse. The differences listed below are simply generalized differences in typical brain functioning, and it is important to remember that all differences have advantages and disadvantages.
Processing
Male brains utilize nearly seven times more gray matterfor activity while female brains utilize nearly ten times more white matter. What does this mean?
Gray matter areas of the brain are localized. They are information- and action-processing centers in specific splotches in a specific area of the brain. This can translate to a kind of tunnel vision when they are doing something. When boys are deeply engaged in a task or game, they may not demonstrate much sensitivity to other people or their surroundings.
White matter is the networking grid that connects the brain’s gray matter and other processing centers with one another. This profound brain-processing difference is probably one reason you may have noticed that girls tend to more quickly transition between tasks than boys do. The gray-white matter difference may explain why, in adulthood, females are great multi-taskers, while men excel in highly task-focused projects.
Chemistry
Male and female brains process the same neurochemicals but to different degrees and through gender-specific body-brain connections. Some dominant neurochemicals are
serotonin, which, among other things, helps us sit still;
In part, because of differences in processing these chemicals, males on average tend to be less inclined to sit still for as long as females and tend to be
Additionally, males process less of the bonding chemical oxytocin than females. Overall, a major takeaway of chemistry differences is to realize that our boys at times need different strategies for stress release than our girls.
Structural Differences
“Structural” refers to actual parts of the brain and the way they are built, including their size and/or mass.
Females often have a larger hippocampus, our human memory center. Females also often have a higher density of neural connections into the hippocampus. As a result, girls and women tend to input or absorb more sensorial and emotive information than males do. By “sensorial” we mean information to and from all five senses.
You will find that females tend to sense a lot more of what is going on around them throughout the day, and they retain that sensorial information more than men.
Additionally, before boys or girls are born, their brains developed with different hemispheric divisions of labor. The right and left hemispheres of the male and female brains are not set up exactly the same way.
Females tend to have verbal centers on both sides of the brain, while males tend to have verbal centers on only the left hemisphere.
Girls tend to use more words when discussing or describing incidence, story, person, object, feeling, or place.
Males have fewer verbal centers.
Males often have fewer connections between their word centers and their memories or feelings. When it comes to discussing feelings and emotions and senses together, girls tend to have an advantage, and they tend to have more interest in talking about these things.
Blood Flow and Brain Activity
The female brain will often revisit emotional memories more than the male brain. There is far more natural blood flow throughout the brain at any given moment (more white matter processing).
Males tend, after reflecting more briefly on an emotive memory, to analyze it somewhat, then move onto the next task. During this process, males may also choose to change course and do something active and unrelated to feelings rather than analyze their feelings at all. Thus, observers may mistakenly believe that boys avoid feelings in comparison to girls or move to problem-solving too quickly.
Scientists have discovered approximately 100 gender differences in the brain. Understanding gender differences opens the door to greater appreciation of the different genders. We can educate and support our children better with this understanding.
Females are Super Human
Girls tend to
sense a change in temperature faster
hear a soft sound more quickly
have more words for more colors
pay less for car insurance
... than boys.
Females also tended to have more connections across the two hemispheres of the brain. The researchers believe that the earlier reorganization in girls makes the brain work more efficiently, and therefore reach a more mature state for processing the environment.
It's not a myth, women really do pay less when it comes to car insurance. For the same policy, women tend to have lower costs to cover their vehicles. If you're a man, this may seem unfair. But in the eyes of an insurer, men are riskier policies and are more likely to make larger claims than women.Nov 7, 2013
Here is an interesting GRAPHIC. If you take 100 men and 100 women, you might find that 80% of the women have at least some of these talents: 80% of the women will sense a change in temperature more quickly than 80% of the men.
