They Do Tick Differently

Women and men differ – genetically as well as biologically. Some illnesses strike one sex more than the other, and medications can have different effects. With respect to possible differences between the male and the female brain, some myths – long dispelled by science – are hard to eradicate: men think rationally and logically, using mostly the left side of the brain, whereas women are more emotional, always utilizing both sides of the brain. It is a fact that the male brain is on average eleven percent larger than the female brain which, however, does not influence the organ’s performance. In 2021, after analyzing all relevant studies, Lise Eliot of Chicago Medical School came to this clear conclusion: “There is no sexual dimorphism in the brain”, meaning: no anatomical differences.

Now, a new study is once again igniting this discussion. The team led by Vinod Menon at Stanford University developed a “Deep Neural Network Model”: an AI algorithm was fed data from MRI scans of more than 1,500 women and men whose brain activity had been measured. Indeed, the algorithm was capable of allocating the brain activities to one sex or the other based on certain recurring patterns. Accuracy: above 90 percent.
The researchers intend for their study to have a broader impact than providing a mere description of possible differences between women and men. “One of the main motivations for this study is the fact that sex plays a critical role during the development of the human brain, during the aging process and during the manifestation of psychiatric and neurologic illnesses”, says principal investigator Menon.