Table of contents:

1. Introduction
2. Anatomy and functions overview
3. Tel Aviv University study, 2015
4. Study lead by Regini Verma, PhD
5. Daniel Gregory Amen study
6. Article by Gregory L. Jantz, Ph.D.
7. Conclusion
8. References

1. Introduction

The brain is that portion of Central nervous system that is located within the skull. It has many functions in coordination, interpretation and regulation of body functions.

Image source

Image source

We usually ask ourselves; is our differences only on sex organs and body shape? Some even come to the conclusion that males are wiser than females you may be wrong. In this article I have dug deep to find if there are differences, to see if those who say that men are wiser than women are wrong or right, it's actually an interesting and curious topic. And in this article I'll respond to your curiosity. Let us first look for the anatomy overview and the brain functions.

2. Anatomy and functions overview

In 1950 Paul Maclean proposed that human brain is 3 in 1:
🐊 1.Reptilian brain includes brainstem and cerebellum, it is called like this due to the fact that these parts are dominant in reptiles. This part controls thinking and instinctive behaviors( behavior regardless to prior experience. Eg. Dog shaking to remove water). For human, reptilian brain is responsible for balance, muscle control and autonomic functions like breathing, digestion heartbeat......
🐃 2. Mammalian brain or lymbic system which is responsible for emotions and instinct behaviors,
And

1. Neocortex which is a part of cerebral cortex and a center for cognition, controling higher order thinking, reasoning and speech.

Anatomically central nervous system is divided into 2 parts:

Central nervous system(CNS) :

{Brain(our focus today) and spinal cord} This part receives information from 5 senses sight,smell, touch, taste, and hearing.

Peripheral Nervous Systems(PNS) :

{cranial nerves, spinal nerves, and autonomic nerves} this part connects CNS to sensory organs, muscles, blood vessels and glands.

Brain

Brain has 3 parts:

1. Cerebrum:

This is the large part of the brain that contains 70% of 100 billion nerve cells, it is composed of 2 hemispheres left and right.
Each Hemisphere controls the opposite side of the body, right controls left hand, legs and body. The left hemisphere do the same by controlling right hands, legs and body parts. The hemispheres are connected by corpus collosum.

Some researchers believed that hemisphere do the same work, the difference is that they control opposed sides of the body. REGER SPERRY in his BRAIN SPLIT theory he explained the differences of hemispheres and the specificity of each, you can search for brain split if you want more info. Other researchers have also said that hemisphere dominant depend on either left or right handed persons.

Cerebrum has 4 lobes in each hemisphere:

Frontal	Parietal	Occipital	Temporal
personality	sensory strip(pain, touch,temperature)	Vision	memory
Behavior	interpret vision, hearing		hearing and language understanding
Emotions
Broca's area of speech
Body movements(motor strip)
Intelligence
Self awareness
Problem solving
Planing
Judgement

In general Cerebrum interprets touch, vision, hearing, speech, reasoning, emotions, learning and fine control of movements.

2. Cerebellum :

This part coordinates muscle movements and maintains posture and balance.

3. Brain stem:

This is a very very important part of the brain, and there is a lot to talk about this part but I'll not talk much about it as the topic is different. It is made by 3 parts; midbrain, Pons and medulla oblongota.
10 of the 12 cranial nerves originate from brain stem.
This part of the brain performs the autonomic function(automatic function) like : Breathing, Heart rate, body temperature, sleep and wake cycles, digestion, sneezing.

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Let us come to the differences between male and female brains.

3. Tel Aviv University study, 2015

In this study they took MRI from more than 1,400 people. They measured the amount and location of Grey matter (this matter is made of cell body, dendrites, and axon terminals, they use to call it thinking matter) in 116 brain parts.
They analyzed this to see if there are some differences for male or female. And they found that 6 in 100 of brain they studied were specific to only single sex, others were varying.

And they continued the behavior and personality study on 5,500 people and here women tended to be doing activities like phone chatting, keeping in touch with their mums while men were playing video games.

Their study concluded that brain differences depend on family, group or culture that someone grew up in. As a part of the brain interpret signals over and over, those networks will grow stronger. They compared this to a person who lost hearing sense will grow stronger vision sense or opposite.

4. Study lead by Regini Verma, PhD

By leading the Study, she was an associate professor at University of Pennsylvania.

Usually the brain development is influenced by hormones, since in the womb and up to 13 years there is no difference to mental circuit on both genders.
They tested the mental skills of nearly 2000 healthy people of all ages.

👵 Women have more connections going left to right across hemispheres. Right hemisphere specifically for intuition(behavior regardless to prior experience.) and left specifically for logical thinking and this advantage them in pulling information together from different sources.

👴 They found that men's brain has more connections from front to back and this heighten there perception. Strong connections between Area for motor and spatial skills and this advantage them in doing better activities that need Hand-Eye Coordination.

#connectome-maps
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Dr. Verma also observed larger(than men) amounts of Grey matter(this matter is made of cell body, dendrites, and axon terminals) in women's hippocampus(plays role in memory) and left coudate(center of communication skills). Verma concluded that regions linked to memory and social cognition are more in women, hence their ability to understand how others are feeling and they respond to social situations than men do.

🚩 Verma "these don't apply to everyone"

5. Daniel Gregory Amen study, MD

Studied 45,000 brain scans and found that male brain is 10% larger than female brain

🚩Dr. Daniel:

👓"Bigger doesn't mean smarter"
👓"No difference in IQ between male and female."

6. Article by Gregory L. Jantz, Ph.D.

Dr. Gregory brought this together and made it clearer in his article and shown the differences in 4 categories :

1. PROCESSING:

He said that male brain utilize 7× more Grey matter while female utilize 10× more white matter.

📌 Grey matter are localized, they are information and processing centers. Hence men when deeply engaged in a task or something, they may not show attention to their surroundings or people around. This explains why men excel in highly task focused projects.

📌 White matter connects Grey matter and other processing centers, and this explains why females are great at multi tasks.
E.g: Woman at home cooking, cleaning, taking care of children.........

2. CHEMISTRY:

Males and females process same neurochemicals but at different degrees.
💦 Serotonin: Responsible for sit still and happiness as women respond to higher degree on this hormone, hence they tend to sit still longer than men

💦 Testosterone: for aggression and sex, higher degree of response in men than women hence more physically impressive and aggressive
💦 Estrogen: female growth and reproductive more degree of response in women.
💦 Oxytocin: bonding relationship chemical, higher degree of response in women.

3. STRUCTURE:

🌲 Female have larger Hippocampus(memory center) as Verma study have shown. As a result female tend to absorb more sensorial and emotional informations than males and women retain the information longer than men. You can easily observe this in love relationships women tend to remember important dates....

🌲 Female tend to have verbal centers on both Hemispheres while men tend to have verbal centers only on left hemisphere. This explains the fact that females use more words while explaining situations or describing something.
¶ Males have less connectivity between word centers word centers and their memories and emotions.
¶ Females Love and have what to talk about their memories and emotions as they have more connections between word centers memories and emotions.

4. BRAIN ACTIVITY:

❤ Blood flow in females has more natural blood flow thorought the brain at any moment due to more white matter activity.
🚩 High blood flow to cingulate gyrus(concentration part of the brain) results in emotional memories in women than men.

🚩 Males tend to reflect briefly on emotional memories and analyze it somewhat and then move to next task. You may mistakenly believe that men avoid feelings or solve problems too Quickly noo, it's actually blood flow that ruminates and revisits emotional memories than in men.

7. Conclusion:

To conclude there is no big differences between female and male brains but there is important differences. Knowing these differences helps us to better appreciate our differences and know how to parent, to manage love relationships, to educate and support.
#asapers
#life
#rwanda
#science
#africa
#wafrica
#health
#medicine

🚩 🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩🚩
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By Jado

@bmotives

8. References:

1. https://www.mayfieldclinic.com/PE-AnatBrain.htm
2. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Split-brain
3. https://en.m.wikiversity.org/wiki/Comparative_Neuroscience/Overview_of_Mammalian_Neuroanatomy
4. https://www.webmd.com/brain/features/how-male-female-brains-differ
5. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/hope-relationships/201402/brain-differences-between-genders
6. Grey's Anatomy for personal recap and observations of brain anatomy.
7. https://www.123rf.com/stock-photo/brain_stem.html?imgtype=0&oriSearch=human+brain&sti=le8s5mtk5frdyk8xqw|
8. https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/the-hardwired-difference-between-male-and-female-brains-could-explain-why-men-are-better-at-map-8978248.html