Male and Female Brains Wired Differently

The brains of men contain stronger front-to-rear connections while those of women are better connected from left to right.

Written byBob Grant

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WIKIMEDIA, MINIME 12358Update (January 16, 2015): See “Crossed Wires” for an extended discussion of this study and the published results.

New research on the neural connections within the human brain suggests sex-based differences that many have suspected for centuries: women seem to be wired more for socialization and memory while men appear geared toward perception and coordinated action. The female brain appears to have increased connection between neurons in the right and left hemispheres of the brain, and males seem to have increased neural communication within hemispheres from frontal to rear portions of the organ. University of Pennsylvania researchers announced the results, generated by scanning the brains of about 1,000 people using a technique called diffusion tensor imaging, on Monday (December 2) in the PNAS.

UPenn Perelman School of Medicine radiologist Ragini Verma and colleagues scanned the brains of more than 400 males and more ...

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Meet the Author

Bob Grant
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From 2017 to 2022, Bob Grant was Editor in Chief of The Scientist, where he started in 2007 as a Staff Writer. Before joining the team, he worked as a reporter at Audubon and earned a master’s degree in science journalism from New York University. In his previous life, he pursued a career in science, getting a bachelor’s degree in wildlife biology from Montana State University and a master’s degree in marine biology from the College of Charleston in South Carolina. Bob edited Reading Frames and other sections of the magazine.
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