3 ms·

Male and female brains differ at birth

39 points by niemandhier 2y ago

niemandhier 2y ago
Males showed 6.16% larger total brain volume and 5.64% larger intracranial volume (total space inside the skull) compared to females, even after accounting for birth weight. Females showed relatively larger gray matter volumes, while males had relatively larger white matter volumes when controlling for overall brain size. Accessible discussion of the results can be found here: https://studyfinds.org/how-male-and-female-brains-differ-at-birth/ https://studyfinds.org/how-male-and-female-brains-differ-at-...
- whatsupdog 2y ago
  [flagged]
- hulitu 2y ago
  > Males showed 6.16% larger total brain volume and 5.64% larger intracranial volume (total space inside the skull) compared to females, even after accounting for birth weight. One can have 100% total brain volume or intracranial volume. If it is not used, it's useles.
mads 2y ago
This cant really be a surprise, can it?
- whatsupdog 2y ago
  [flagged]
- gaganyaan 2y ago
  Not so much a surprise as it is contentious. It makes it harder to accept the statement "Trans women are women", for example.
  - shintoist 2y ago
    I think maybe you've understood. The study doesn't say that all birth-assigned male brains are larger than all birth-assigned female brains. There's still variety within the group, with lots of girls with larger brains than lots of boys.
  - geewee 2y ago
    Does it? Nobody's arguing that trans women are female.
    - fibberish 2y ago
      Actually in recent years, there are many people who argue exactly that. Their claim being that taking medication to suppress testosterone and boost estrogen, as well as having various cosmetic surgeries (castration, inversion of penis, bone/cartilage/soft tissue reshaping of facial features), gives these males a "female body". Some of these males even claim to no longer be trans as a result of these surgical and pharmaceutical interventions, referring to themselves as "cis women".
  - jose-incandenza 2y ago
    Or maybe it may be related to trans people having a brain structure more similar to the other sex at birth. The article talks about the median results, it doesn't state that all new born male brains have those features, but that the median brain have them.
    - fibberish 2y ago
      Having some brain measurements that are more similar to the opposite sex correlates with homosexuality, not trans. The initial studies on this didn't control for sexuality and mostly used subjects who were both homosexual and transsexual. In later studies that also measured sexuality, no correlation of sex atypical brain measurements with trans was found, only with homosexuality.
      - jose-incandenza 2y ago
louwrentius 2y ago
[flagged]
- whatsupdog 2y ago
  [flagged]
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- rowanG077 2y ago
  Why would anyone need to have expertise in a topic to be allowed to say anything? Sounds like a very dark path to walk to just ban discussion on a topic.
  - antisthenes 2y ago
    Because the opposite end of that is having thousands of people drown out any nuanced discussion in their low-brow reactionist takes and "folk wisdom".
  - citadel_melon 2y ago
    Non-experts can chime in and can often glean insights experts miss. I conjecture -- as a non-expert -- for this article, most laymen will probably come to wackier conclusions than the research really permits. There is a common (and I believe fallacious) conflation between brain size and intelligence. There is also a common (and I believe fallacious) conflation between quick early development and lifelong intelligence. If brain size alone meant anything, sperm whales and elephants would be rulers of the world. If brain-body proportion alone meant anything, ants would be rulers of the world. Also, brains at birth and speedy early development can be misleading. Pigeons develop physically and mentally very quickly when born, while crows take much longer to become self-sufficient. Once fully developed, crows are much more intelligent than pigeons. If anything, there may generally be an inverse correlation between taking longer to develop and smarts. Humans take years to start walking and feed themselves, while giraffes take less than a minute to take their first steps. The research linked in this thread is probably useful to experts in the field. Without further expert interpretation, I am not sure what value laymen could glean from this study other than a factoid or two. However, I think my comment and a couple of others may be insightful, so sharing the article to start a conversation is not meritless.
tyleo 2y ago
I thought the differences in grey/white matter in male/female brains were known. I remember hearing about this all the way back in 2005. Edit: Well I feel like a fool. I opened up and read past the headline. This article is specifically about the differences in babies and acknowledges known differences in adults. > Sex differences in human brain anatomy have been well-documented, though remain significantly underexplored during early development.
AndrewDucker 2y ago
It's fascinating to see figure 1 and figure 3 where there's a huge amount of overlap between the groups. To get to a place on each graph where there are no men you also have almost no women either. It's only the extreme outliers who are definitively inside a single gender part of the results.
- lapcat 2y ago
  Yes, you'd see the same thing with height, for example. On average, men are several inches taller than women, but there's a ton of overlap, and plenty of men are shorter than the taller women. In a professional sport, the top 1000 athletes on Earth are almost certainly going to be men. But at the recreational level, the genders can be very competitive, and a lot of women will kick your butt.
- gaganyaan 2y ago
  Not too surprising, that's true for many single axes for adult humans as well, for example there's lots of tall women and short men. Multi-dimensional analyses are very different though
RichieNicolson 2y ago
[dead]

39 points by niemandhier 2y ago

Males showed 6.16% larger total brain volume and 5.64% larger intracranial volume (total space inside the skull) compared to females, even after accounting for birth weight. Females showed relatively larger gray matter volumes, while males had relatively larger white matter volumes when controlling for overall brain size. Accessible discussion of the results can be found here: https://studyfinds.org/how-male-and-female-brains-differ-at-birth/ https://studyfinds.org/how-male-and-female-brains-differ-at-...

whatsupdog 2y ago
[flagged]
hulitu 2y ago
> Males showed 6.16% larger total brain volume and 5.64% larger intracranial volume (total space inside the skull) compared to females, even after accounting for birth weight. One can have 100% total brain volume or intracranial volume. If it is not used, it's useles.

mads 2y ago

This cant really be a surprise, can it?

whatsupdog 2y ago
[flagged]
gaganyaan 2y ago
Not so much a surprise as it is contentious. It makes it harder to accept the statement "Trans women are women", for example.
- shintoist 2y ago
  I think maybe you've understood. The study doesn't say that all birth-assigned male brains are larger than all birth-assigned female brains. There's still variety within the group, with lots of girls with larger brains than lots of boys.
- geewee 2y ago
  Does it? Nobody's arguing that trans women are female.
  - fibberish 2y ago
    Actually in recent years, there are many people who argue exactly that. Their claim being that taking medication to suppress testosterone and boost estrogen, as well as having various cosmetic surgeries (castration, inversion of penis, bone/cartilage/soft tissue reshaping of facial features), gives these males a "female body". Some of these males even claim to no longer be trans as a result of these surgical and pharmaceutical interventions, referring to themselves as "cis women".
- jose-incandenza 2y ago
  Or maybe it may be related to trans people having a brain structure more similar to the other sex at birth. The article talks about the median results, it doesn't state that all new born male brains have those features, but that the median brain have them.
  - fibberish 2y ago
    Having some brain measurements that are more similar to the opposite sex correlates with homosexuality, not trans. The initial studies on this didn't control for sexuality and mostly used subjects who were both homosexual and transsexual. In later studies that also measured sexuality, no correlation of sex atypical brain measurements with trans was found, only with homosexuality.
    - jose-incandenza 2y ago

louwrentius 2y ago

[flagged]

whatsupdog 2y ago
[flagged]
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
rowanG077 2y ago
Why would anyone need to have expertise in a topic to be allowed to say anything? Sounds like a very dark path to walk to just ban discussion on a topic.
- antisthenes 2y ago
  Because the opposite end of that is having thousands of people drown out any nuanced discussion in their low-brow reactionist takes and "folk wisdom".
- citadel_melon 2y ago
  Non-experts can chime in and can often glean insights experts miss. I conjecture -- as a non-expert -- for this article, most laymen will probably come to wackier conclusions than the research really permits. There is a common (and I believe fallacious) conflation between brain size and intelligence. There is also a common (and I believe fallacious) conflation between quick early development and lifelong intelligence. If brain size alone meant anything, sperm whales and elephants would be rulers of the world. If brain-body proportion alone meant anything, ants would be rulers of the world. Also, brains at birth and speedy early development can be misleading. Pigeons develop physically and mentally very quickly when born, while crows take much longer to become self-sufficient. Once fully developed, crows are much more intelligent than pigeons. If anything, there may generally be an inverse correlation between taking longer to develop and smarts. Humans take years to start walking and feed themselves, while giraffes take less than a minute to take their first steps. The research linked in this thread is probably useful to experts in the field. Without further expert interpretation, I am not sure what value laymen could glean from this study other than a factoid or two. However, I think my comment and a couple of others may be insightful, so sharing the article to start a conversation is not meritless.

tyleo 2y ago

I thought the differences in grey/white matter in male/female brains were known. I remember hearing about this all the way back in 2005. Edit: Well I feel like a fool. I opened up and read past the headline. This article is specifically about the differences in babies and acknowledges known differences in adults. > Sex differences in human brain anatomy have been well-documented, though remain significantly underexplored during early development.

AndrewDucker 2y ago

It's fascinating to see figure 1 and figure 3 where there's a huge amount of overlap between the groups. To get to a place on each graph where there are no men you also have almost no women either. It's only the extreme outliers who are definitively inside a single gender part of the results.

lapcat 2y ago
Yes, you'd see the same thing with height, for example. On average, men are several inches taller than women, but there's a ton of overlap, and plenty of men are shorter than the taller women. In a professional sport, the top 1000 athletes on Earth are almost certainly going to be men. But at the recreational level, the genders can be very competitive, and a lot of women will kick your butt.
gaganyaan 2y ago
Not too surprising, that's true for many single axes for adult humans as well, for example there's lots of tall women and short men. Multi-dimensional analyses are very different though

RichieNicolson 2y ago

[dead]