Despite the fact that for a long time scientists have not found significant differences in the male and female brains - with the exception, perhaps, of small structural components - recent evidence suggests that this question is not so straightforward.
A recent study found that women outperform men on a wide range of memory tests, plus it has been shown that female and male brains age differently. Something else? Certainly.
This article contains five facts at once about the differences between the male and female brains, as well as information about why they are important for your health.
Women have better memory function
A 2016 study published in the journal Neurology found that women performed better on memory tests related to words or language. "And because verbal tests are the ones used for Alzheimer's, this advantage of the female brain may mask early symptoms of the disease," says Erin Sandermann, research assistant at the University of California. In other words, because of the better verbal memory, women are able to compensate for the decrease in brain activity over a long period, so that diagnosing Alzheimer's disease at an early stage is much more difficult in women than in men. In addition, the hemispheres of the female brain communicate better with each other.
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The female brain shrinks more
A team of researchers from Finland and the UK reported in January 2016 that women lost more of their total brain volume than men during the study period (which is almost nine years). Scientists worked with a small group of people between the ages of 34 and 43 and found that since the beginning of the study, the size of the female brain has shrunk more than the size of the male brain. Additional evidence is provided by the fact that similar studies of older people (aged 65 to 82) have come to the same conclusion.
But the male brain shrinks in different areas
Indeed, the overall size of the brain decreases more strongly in women, but the difference lies in exactly where this contraction occurs. Research has shown that greater reductions in brain volume in the frontal and temporal lobes, which regulate personality, emotional, and cognitive functions, are found in men compared with reductions in the hippocampus and parietal lobes, which are involved in memory, language, spatial and visual perception, in women.
Areas of compression affect the risk of disease
At the moment, there are no studies that would claim a link between the risk of various diseases and compression of the brain in a particular area. And, nevertheless, many scientists reflect on this topic. Thus, there are suggestions that it is these indicators that cause a higher risk of Alzheimer's disease in women and a higher risk of Parkinson's disease in men.
Estrogen makes women equal to men
The sharp drop in estrogen levels during menopause is often accompanied by some memory loss. “A lot of women will tell you that during menopause you feel like your brain is in a fog,” says Doren Rentz, assistant professor of neurology at Harvard Medical School. "When women go through menopause, they lose their memory advantage over men and move on as equals." But what is still not entirely clear is exactly how estrogen works, since hormone therapy is not able to return the situation to the starting point.