Women’s Brains More Active Than Men’s In Two Areas: Study

A new study has found that women’s brains are more active than men’s, especially in the region that handles focus and self-control, and the region that manages mood disorders. California’s Amen Clinics used a 3D imaging software in the largest functional brain imaging study to date, according to the clinic’s press release.

The study inspected 119 healthy volunteers, and 26,683 patients with a variety of psychiatric conditions. Researchers analysed 128 brain regions, while subjects performed concentration tasks.

The study found that there is increased blood flow in the pre-frontal cortex regions of women’s brains, which is possibly why women have greater strengths in areas of empathy, intuition, self-control and appropriate concern. There is more blood flowing to the limbic areas of women’s brain, which may partially explain why women are more vulnerable to anxiety, depression, insomnia and eating disorders. The visual and coordination centers were more active in men's brains than in women's brains. 

"This is a very important study to help understand gender-based brain differences. The quantifiable differences we identified between men and women are important for understanding gender-based risk for brain disorders such as Alzheimer's disease. Using functional neuroimaging tools, such as SPECT, are essential to developing precision medicine brain treatments in the future,” said the study’s lead author, Daniel G. Amen, founder of Amen Clinics.

Amen said that understanding differences in women’s and men’s brains is important to understand diseases like Alzheimer’s disease and depression which affect women and men differently. Women are more affected by Alzheimer's and depression, while men have higher rates of (ADHD), conduct-related problems, and incarceration (by 1,400%).

The implications of the study are important when it comes to proper treatment and diagnosis of diseases, say the researchers. The study is published in the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease.

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