The most complicated part of the human body is the human brain. Due to its complexity, many things still need to be evaluated about the brain’s functioning and structuring. The weight of an adult brain is about 3 pounds, with slight differences between males and females. Dehydrations may have fatal consequences because the human brain is composed of 75% water. However, the water content of the brain has no gender-based differences. The main components of the human brain are millions of neurons, neural stem cells, blood vessels, and glial cells. The number of neurons, stem cells, and blood vessels is the same in males and females. The man and women share a common taxonomical rank. They have unmeasurable similarities and few measurable differences. In the past, it was assumed that the general structure of the human brain was almost the same in both genders. With time, many scientists have started investigating how women’s brains are different from men’s one? The efforts to find these differences continue, but only a few differences in size, complexity, and morphology have been identified.
Relative Differences Between The Size Of The Male And Female Brain:
According to early studies, the size of a women’s brain is not equal to the average size of the brain of human male adults. In the past, few neurologists thought that the size of the brain, either male or female, was closely related to the size of other body parts such as the person’s height and skull size. Davison Ankney (1992) performed a detailed study to find the gender-based differences among the brain size. In his study, he measured the size of the brain of black and white women and men. The variables such as body size or body surface area in all experimental groups were also considered. This study shows that the size of the male brain was 100 g more than the size of the female brain. According to this study, the possible reason for this difference is the body size and surface of man’s skull. Hence, according to 1990’s studies, the differences in the size of the male and female brain are most likely due to the larger body size of males compared to females. Therefore, gender differences are of the least importance.
Recently, a renowned neurologist named Dr. Eliot announced that the differences among the size of the male and female brain are due to the difference in their skull or body morphology. The larger size of the male brain is least associated with sex differences. Hence from 1992 to recent studies, the association of heavier male brain is linked with larger skull size, not with gender. Studies also proved that the size of the brain also varies among men with different brain sizes. In clear words, I can say that men with larger skull sizes and body weight have heavier brains than man with smaller skull sizes.
However, in recent studies, it has been found that the size of the male brain is greater than females. But the region of the human brain hippocampus, known for its abilities to control memory and learning, is found larger in women. On the other hand, the amygdala, a part of the human brain associated with emotions, feelings, and abilities to recall the previous experience, is larger in men than women. Hence, depending upon the size of the hippocampus and amygdala, behavior changes appear among both sexes.
Women can store information for a longer period as compared to men. Similarly, men have better abilities to learn from past mistakes as compared to women. Brain imaging techniques reveal that the only apparent difference between men’s and women’s brains is the relative size ratio. This is because the brain’s basic components, such as cerebrum, cerebellum, pons, medulla, hippocampus, corpus callosum, thalamus, are brain stem morphology are alike in both genders, as shown in Figure 1.
Neurologists use MRI and brain scanning techniques to see the morphological changes in the brain of both genders. However, the only difference found was the volume and ratio of different parts of the brain. At the same time, the arrangement and parts of the brain are exactly alike. The characteristics differences among males and females are due to the number of hormonal releases from different brain parts and other organs. While the behavioural differences occur only due to the volume and thickness of parts such as the cerebral cortex. The thickness and volume of the cerebral cortex is sex dependent. So the functions associated with the cerebral cortex, such as perceptions, sensations, thoughts, and reactions, may vary among both genders.
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Figure 1: structural and functional components of the human brain
Researchers of different organizations including dissertation help firms are working to find differences among male and women brains, but still, slight differences are identified. For example, a study found that the male brain is considered more lateralized (the left and right hemispheres). At the same time, the left and right hemispheres of women’s brains have a high level of synchronization. Due to these differences in the physiology of the human brain in both males and females, males are more vulnerable to paralysis after head injury than women. However, evidence from many studies shows that the difference in the connectivity of both hemispheres in males and females is not more than 1%.
Hence, in light of the above discussion argument about the differences between male and female brain physiology, it has been clear that males and females have similar brains. The in vitro analysis of brain structure cannot give any evidence about the gender of its donor. Many neurologists have stated that the human brain, just other organs (liver or kidney), can be transplanted between both genders with great success.
