6 ms·

Male and female brains wired differently, scans reveal

48 points by petercooper 13y ago

1angryhacker 13y ago
THERE ARE NO WIRES IN YOUR BRAIN
- spacehome 13y ago
  Of course there are.
im3w1l 13y ago
Brain structure is dependent on environment and can change in response to training, so a cautious interpretation is advisable.
- LaGrange 13y ago
  Exactly: "Male and female brains showed few differences in connectivity up to the age of 13, but became more differentiated in 14- to 17-year-olds.” Which can be hormonal, can be cultural, can be both.
  - im3w1l 13y ago
    Body builders and transsexuals both take sex hormones. Would be interesting to compare connectivity pre-during-post...
- merrua 13y ago
  It would have been far more interesting if the study was on the brains of mathematicians (everyone has the same career), in more than one country (help removes one cultures influence).
napoleoncomplex 13y ago
I wonder how the nature versus nurture aspect comes into play in this. Are male and female brains inherently wired differently, or do they wire differently as we grow up due to the different experiences and upbringing men and women are subject to? This might be a dumb question, but one that immediately pops up for me.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- steveridout 13y ago
  Definitely not a dumb question, this is what immediately jumped into my head too. I imagine it's very difficult to get an answer to this. A controlled experiment is obviously impossible, but perhaps comparing results from a diverse range of cultures around the world could give a clue.
  - V-2 13y ago
    A 100% proper controlled experiment with double blinding etc. is not possible, perhaps, but there are transgender children who often are raised as if they were of their physical sex, which obviously causes them to suffer. I always wondered - if it's purely a social construct that boys play with trucks and girls play with dolls etc., then why in most stories about a girl trapped in a boy's body we hear her say "I wanted to play with girls" (contrary to society's expectations), "I wanted to play with dolls" etc.? I googled it up just now - http://prospect.org/article/transgender-candidate http://prospect.org/article/transgender-candidate The story of Bindaya Rana (from Pakistani), who was born as a male: "Bindiya Rana, one of Pakistan’s first transgender candidates [...] “I used to wear my sister’s clothes,” she said. “And use lipstick and powder and nail polish. I wanted to play with dolls and be in the kitchen.” Her parents disapproved when they found her in makeup, beating her." It's a gaping hole in the theory that we are wired differently "as we grow up due to the different experiences and upbringing men and women are subject to". If one's self-identified gender could be overriden so easily, there would me much less personal tragedies in this world.
    - knowitall 13y ago
      I seriously doubt preferences for lipstick and nail polish are genetic. For most of human evolution, there were no such things around.
      - icebraining 13y ago
Aloha 13y ago
Anyone who has ever worked with people of different sexes could have told them. Men and Women go about solving problems in vastly different ways. Women do better in high stress, high information volume situations, are able to make more intelligent choices when little or no data is available. Men are better with logic puzzles, but generally are poor listeners, and have poor soft skills. Women are better managers of people, Men, better managers of things. Obviously, these are not universal truths, but there are certain roles I would prefer a woman candidate for, others I would prefer a man, I'm going to make a judgement on the person, but their gender is part of the experience package.
- theorique 13y ago
  Better keep that under your hat in any consultation with HR. It's one thing to have useful heuristics and rules of thumb, but when it conflicts with official, blessed truths about "humans are all identical", it's important to be careful what you say and to whom. Especially in the workplace, where there can be real consequences for having the "wrong" points of view.
  - kosei 13y ago
    It's understandable why it's an issue to use heuristics based on a person's gender, race or upbringing are an issue. However, there are likely instances where it's useful. I honestly don't know how to separate my logic from emotions on this one, especially when it comes to things like racial profiling or hiring practices based on gender. I am ethically opposed to each, despite the fact that I know that they can often be useful.
    - theorique 13y ago
      I agree, profiling based on race and sex is unwise and undesirable. We all bring our particular preferences and biases to the table, so we need to do the best we can to be fair and reasonable to the candidates that come in front of us.
  - Aloha 13y ago
    Where it would come into play is: Two Candidates, identical qualifications, identical experience, both interview well, I'm going to go with my 'intuition' to make the final call, whatever it is that goes into that is between myself and my concience.
pygy_ 13y ago
From the main author: If you look at functional studies, the left of the brain is more for logical thinking, the right of the brain is for more intuitive thinking. I was under the impression that this left brain/right brain theory had been debunked by functional imagery.
- Semaphor 13y ago
  I'm not sure, I think only the theory that some people are left or right-brained has been debunked. And that there is a strict separation of concerns. IIRC stuff like language processing is still >50% done in the left brain half. But I can't find any relevant studies I'd understand on Google Scholar right now so I might be wrong. And as I'm a layman take this with a grain (or more) of salt ;)
  - pygy_ 13y ago
    Language processing is indeed often lateralized (symbolic interpretation left, intonation right, in (most) right-handed people[0]), and other specific tasks are also lateralized, but I don't think you can generalize it like she does. I do have a background in neuroscience (I did research on headache physiology a few years ago), but I'm not too familiar with functional imaging. -- [0] Handedness is a strange thing. The gene that governs it has two alleles. One is dominant, and causes right-handedness. The recissive one, doesn't necessarily cause left-handedness. Handedness is people with two recessive genes is random, roughly 50/50 (a bit less for each, since it can also make one ambidextrous). The clockwise or counter-clockwise rotation of the main cowlick is also governed by the same gene, in the same fashion, AFAIK, independently (the dominant gene makes the cowlick turn clockwise).
krcz 13y ago
One might ask if there is a clear line between female and male brains (like genitals for example) or differences are more like height - statistically men are higher than women, but there's much overlap. I believe that it is the second case - which means you really shouldn't base decisions on the sex of person and brain "wiring" you believe she or he has.
- hrkristian 13y ago
  That doesn't stop people trying to figure it out, and being consistently wrong on every turn doing so. HR stands as a shining example here, hiding behind "personality tests".
octo_t 13y ago
Please read Cordelia Fine's Delusions of Gender, because it goes into exactly why things like this are bogus science.
- nailer 13y ago
  I could read an entire book, but then again, perhaps you could state your point in your actual comment like everyone else has?
- hrkristian 13y ago
  Do go on, tell us how one book from one person makes all future scientific research redundant. While we're at it, lets go back to pi=3, like god intended.
  - anextio 13y ago
    It takes more than a few paragraphs to sum up the pathological problems in neuroscience research. Studies like the one in the article give us data points, but nowhere to draw any conclusions from. Conclusions in things like this are very often 'just-so' stories, of the kind you hear from the Evo Psych nonsense-heads. Almost every study purporting to show innate differences between males and females has been shown to lack rigor, blindness, or has drawn conclusions from imaginary sources based on pre-conceived notions not found in the data. You can see those preconceived notions in this thread. Many of the comments have a very strong stench of "of course, we've known this all along, men and women are different, and it's unfortunate that only men are good at the things that pay a lot of money, but that's life". The latter part may not be stated directly, but anyone who has paid any attention to this kind of argument on the internet knows that it's heavily implied under a very thin surface in the majority of comments like this.
    - johnbm 13y ago
      So when even one day old babies are shown to pay different attention to mechanical things vs faces between boys and girls, that's just evo psych non-sense too? Or the fact that the countries with the most gender equality in society show less preference in men or women to break with gender stereotypes in their jobs?
bjourne 13y ago
Note that the article cleverly omits any numerical data, likely not to scare of the numberophobic readers. Nowhere does it say whether female brains where 0.1% more connected, 1%, 10%, 100% or 1000% across hemispheres. It just says "more connected." So, if you want to calibrate your gender difference prejudices those numbers are very important -- without them the article doesn't say very much.
- fellInchoate 13y ago
  Wouldn't those numbers only be useful if you understood the impact of x% differences? Does a 10% increase in left-right connectivity make you 10 times better at some task or 1000 times better? I think we (or at least I!) know too little for any of this to be truly meaningful. But it's still interesting.
scrrr 13y ago
I'm sure "Gender Studies" will find a way to discredit such findings.. ;)
- petercooper 13y ago
  The problem is that society could influence the results. After all, are these "wirings" nature or nurture? It'd probably take analysis of many people from many cultures and backgrounds to get a good feel for it.
- anextio 13y ago
  Are you really disregarding, with scare quotes and a smiley, an entire field of study to which many thousands have contributed papers, books, and research? It's this attitude that leads to the sexism in our industry. Seeing this kind of bollocks upvoted on a regular basis is extremely disheartening.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
  - Domenic_S 13y ago
    > Are you really disregarding, with scare quotes and a smiley, an entire field of study to which many thousands have contributed papers, books, and research? Hey, people do the same with psychology and religion all the time.
  - eliteraspberrie 13y ago
    Gender studies is not a science.
AndrewDucker 13y ago
Seems likely that a large chunk of this is hormonally affected - seeing as the changes kick in at the start of puberty. In which case it's worth remembering that hormonal levels vary dramatically for both men and women, and I'd expect that over a large sample size you'd see a fair amount of crossover.
dansimau 13y ago
Shock, horror!
olgeni 13y ago
Prediction: massive virtual layoff of The Guardian journalists by Joyent.
alexPetrov846 13y ago
A skeptical review of this article and the paper it uses as a source: http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2013/12/getting-in-a-tangle-over-men-and-womens-brain-wiring/?cid=co15298434 http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2013/12/getting-in-a-tangl... Significant portion: "... [O]ther experts have crunched the numbers and they state that although the differences are statistically significant, they are actually not substantive. And remember, these are average differences with a lot of overlap. It’s possible that my male brain is wired more like an average female brain than yours, even if you’re a woman."

48 points by petercooper 13y ago

1angryhacker 13y ago

THERE ARE NO WIRES IN YOUR BRAIN

spacehome 13y ago
Of course there are.

im3w1l 13y ago

Brain structure is dependent on environment and can change in response to training, so a cautious interpretation is advisable.

LaGrange 13y ago
Exactly: "Male and female brains showed few differences in connectivity up to the age of 13, but became more differentiated in 14- to 17-year-olds.” Which can be hormonal, can be cultural, can be both.
- im3w1l 13y ago
  Body builders and transsexuals both take sex hormones. Would be interesting to compare connectivity pre-during-post...
merrua 13y ago
It would have been far more interesting if the study was on the brains of mathematicians (everyone has the same career), in more than one country (help removes one cultures influence).

napoleoncomplex 13y ago

I wonder how the nature versus nurture aspect comes into play in this. Are male and female brains inherently wired differently, or do they wire differently as we grow up due to the different experiences and upbringing men and women are subject to? This might be a dumb question, but one that immediately pops up for me.

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
steveridout 13y ago
Definitely not a dumb question, this is what immediately jumped into my head too. I imagine it's very difficult to get an answer to this. A controlled experiment is obviously impossible, but perhaps comparing results from a diverse range of cultures around the world could give a clue.
- V-2 13y ago
  A 100% proper controlled experiment with double blinding etc. is not possible, perhaps, but there are transgender children who often are raised as if they were of their physical sex, which obviously causes them to suffer. I always wondered - if it's purely a social construct that boys play with trucks and girls play with dolls etc., then why in most stories about a girl trapped in a boy's body we hear her say "I wanted to play with girls" (contrary to society's expectations), "I wanted to play with dolls" etc.? I googled it up just now - http://prospect.org/article/transgender-candidate http://prospect.org/article/transgender-candidate The story of Bindaya Rana (from Pakistani), who was born as a male: "Bindiya Rana, one of Pakistan’s first transgender candidates [...] “I used to wear my sister’s clothes,” she said. “And use lipstick and powder and nail polish. I wanted to play with dolls and be in the kitchen.” Her parents disapproved when they found her in makeup, beating her." It's a gaping hole in the theory that we are wired differently "as we grow up due to the different experiences and upbringing men and women are subject to". If one's self-identified gender could be overriden so easily, there would me much less personal tragedies in this world.
  - knowitall 13y ago
    I seriously doubt preferences for lipstick and nail polish are genetic. For most of human evolution, there were no such things around.
    - icebraining 13y ago

Aloha 13y ago

Anyone who has ever worked with people of different sexes could have told them. Men and Women go about solving problems in vastly different ways. Women do better in high stress, high information volume situations, are able to make more intelligent choices when little or no data is available. Men are better with logic puzzles, but generally are poor listeners, and have poor soft skills. Women are better managers of people, Men, better managers of things. Obviously, these are not universal truths, but there are certain roles I would prefer a woman candidate for, others I would prefer a man, I'm going to make a judgement on the person, but their gender is part of the experience package.

theorique 13y ago
Better keep that under your hat in any consultation with HR. It's one thing to have useful heuristics and rules of thumb, but when it conflicts with official, blessed truths about "humans are all identical", it's important to be careful what you say and to whom. Especially in the workplace, where there can be real consequences for having the "wrong" points of view.
- kosei 13y ago
  It's understandable why it's an issue to use heuristics based on a person's gender, race or upbringing are an issue. However, there are likely instances where it's useful. I honestly don't know how to separate my logic from emotions on this one, especially when it comes to things like racial profiling or hiring practices based on gender. I am ethically opposed to each, despite the fact that I know that they can often be useful.
  - theorique 13y ago
    I agree, profiling based on race and sex is unwise and undesirable. We all bring our particular preferences and biases to the table, so we need to do the best we can to be fair and reasonable to the candidates that come in front of us.
- Aloha 13y ago
  Where it would come into play is: Two Candidates, identical qualifications, identical experience, both interview well, I'm going to go with my 'intuition' to make the final call, whatever it is that goes into that is between myself and my concience.

pygy_ 13y ago

From the main author: If you look at functional studies, the left of the brain is more for logical thinking, the right of the brain is for more intuitive thinking. I was under the impression that this left brain/right brain theory had been debunked by functional imagery.

Semaphor 13y ago
I'm not sure, I think only the theory that some people are left or right-brained has been debunked. And that there is a strict separation of concerns. IIRC stuff like language processing is still >50% done in the left brain half. But I can't find any relevant studies I'd understand on Google Scholar right now so I might be wrong. And as I'm a layman take this with a grain (or more) of salt ;)
- pygy_ 13y ago
  Language processing is indeed often lateralized (symbolic interpretation left, intonation right, in (most) right-handed people[0]), and other specific tasks are also lateralized, but I don't think you can generalize it like she does. I do have a background in neuroscience (I did research on headache physiology a few years ago), but I'm not too familiar with functional imaging. -- [0] Handedness is a strange thing. The gene that governs it has two alleles. One is dominant, and causes right-handedness. The recissive one, doesn't necessarily cause left-handedness. Handedness is people with two recessive genes is random, roughly 50/50 (a bit less for each, since it can also make one ambidextrous). The clockwise or counter-clockwise rotation of the main cowlick is also governed by the same gene, in the same fashion, AFAIK, independently (the dominant gene makes the cowlick turn clockwise).

krcz 13y ago

One might ask if there is a clear line between female and male brains (like genitals for example) or differences are more like height - statistically men are higher than women, but there's much overlap. I believe that it is the second case - which means you really shouldn't base decisions on the sex of person and brain "wiring" you believe she or he has.

hrkristian 13y ago
That doesn't stop people trying to figure it out, and being consistently wrong on every turn doing so. HR stands as a shining example here, hiding behind "personality tests".

octo_t 13y ago

Please read Cordelia Fine's Delusions of Gender, because it goes into exactly why things like this are bogus science.

nailer 13y ago
I could read an entire book, but then again, perhaps you could state your point in your actual comment like everyone else has?
hrkristian 13y ago
Do go on, tell us how one book from one person makes all future scientific research redundant. While we're at it, lets go back to pi=3, like god intended.
- anextio 13y ago
  It takes more than a few paragraphs to sum up the pathological problems in neuroscience research. Studies like the one in the article give us data points, but nowhere to draw any conclusions from. Conclusions in things like this are very often 'just-so' stories, of the kind you hear from the Evo Psych nonsense-heads. Almost every study purporting to show innate differences between males and females has been shown to lack rigor, blindness, or has drawn conclusions from imaginary sources based on pre-conceived notions not found in the data. You can see those preconceived notions in this thread. Many of the comments have a very strong stench of "of course, we've known this all along, men and women are different, and it's unfortunate that only men are good at the things that pay a lot of money, but that's life". The latter part may not be stated directly, but anyone who has paid any attention to this kind of argument on the internet knows that it's heavily implied under a very thin surface in the majority of comments like this.
  - johnbm 13y ago
    So when even one day old babies are shown to pay different attention to mechanical things vs faces between boys and girls, that's just evo psych non-sense too? Or the fact that the countries with the most gender equality in society show less preference in men or women to break with gender stereotypes in their jobs?

bjourne 13y ago

Note that the article cleverly omits any numerical data, likely not to scare of the numberophobic readers. Nowhere does it say whether female brains where 0.1% more connected, 1%, 10%, 100% or 1000% across hemispheres. It just says "more connected." So, if you want to calibrate your gender difference prejudices those numbers are very important -- without them the article doesn't say very much.

fellInchoate 13y ago
Wouldn't those numbers only be useful if you understood the impact of x% differences? Does a 10% increase in left-right connectivity make you 10 times better at some task or 1000 times better? I think we (or at least I!) know too little for any of this to be truly meaningful. But it's still interesting.

scrrr 13y ago

I'm sure "Gender Studies" will find a way to discredit such findings.. ;)

petercooper 13y ago
The problem is that society could influence the results. After all, are these "wirings" nature or nurture? It'd probably take analysis of many people from many cultures and backgrounds to get a good feel for it.
anextio 13y ago
Are you really disregarding, with scare quotes and a smiley, an entire field of study to which many thousands have contributed papers, books, and research? It's this attitude that leads to the sexism in our industry. Seeing this kind of bollocks upvoted on a regular basis is extremely disheartening.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- Domenic_S 13y ago
  > Are you really disregarding, with scare quotes and a smiley, an entire field of study to which many thousands have contributed papers, books, and research? Hey, people do the same with psychology and religion all the time.
- eliteraspberrie 13y ago
  Gender studies is not a science.

AndrewDucker 13y ago

Seems likely that a large chunk of this is hormonally affected - seeing as the changes kick in at the start of puberty. In which case it's worth remembering that hormonal levels vary dramatically for both men and women, and I'd expect that over a large sample size you'd see a fair amount of crossover.

dansimau 13y ago

Shock, horror!

olgeni 13y ago

Prediction: massive virtual layoff of The Guardian journalists by Joyent.

alexPetrov846 13y ago

A skeptical review of this article and the paper it uses as a source: http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2013/12/getting-in-a-tangle-over-men-and-womens-brain-wiring/?cid=co15298434 http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2013/12/getting-in-a-tangl... Significant portion: "... [O]ther experts have crunched the numbers and they state that although the differences are statistically significant, they are actually not substantive. And remember, these are average differences with a lot of overlap. It’s possible that my male brain is wired more like an average female brain than yours, even if you’re a woman."