Could differences in male-female behaviours simply be social conditioning? One thing’s for sure, they’re not anatomical; a new MRI study has found no distinct differences between male and female brains.
The study, entitled Sex beyond the genitalia: The human brain mosaic was published Monday in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The researchers, based at Tel-Aviv University, scanned over 1,400 brains ending with the conclusion that, while there were noticeable differences that could be described as “male-like” or “female-like”, they occurred so seldom (6 per cent in a smaller study group of 281 brains) and were so interchangeable, that no recurring pattern could be observed.
The researchers write “Our study demonstrates that although there are sex/gender differences in brain structure, brains do not fall into two classes, one typical of males and the other typical of females, nor are they aligned along a ‘male brain–female brain’ continuum.”