I have shown below the Guardians report on this study, which at first glance appears to confirm the "binary" approach to gender. What I find interesting is the effects of hormone changes after puberty and the influence of culture and attitudes.

Enough of us on here are convinced that we were given the wrong body, so I wonder waht our neural maps would look like and how many feminine abilities we really have. So before you read the article, here are a couple of comments that may strike some chords

One view >>>
From everything I've read its almost certainly a mixture of hormonal (and other internal) factors along with external influences.
Some key changes in the brain during adolescence are:
1. A spurt of synapse growth just before puberty
2. Pruning away of many existing synapses
3. Growth of white matter, which increases the speed and efficiency of remaining synapses (by insulating them with myelin)
Though it might seem strange, the "pruning" of synapses is really critical. There is definitely truth to the adage "use it or lose it". Connections that are often used get reinforced, while connections that aren't used are likely to be pruned away. This leaves enormous room for external influences, even though hormones drive these changes.
To put another way, the hormones are pushing the brain to re-organize into a more adult form - becoming less flexible and more specialized - but a person's experiences and use of their brain shapes what their adult brain is specialized for.

Second View >>>>

Except for those of us men (and I am one) who have delicate lady-like brains. And, I imagine, for those women who have hulking great man-brains. Obviously there are lots of us with cognitive traits and personalities that don't match up perfectly with what our gender would seem to demand. Coping with gender stereotypes in the world is difficult enough without having scientists telling us that our bloody brains are doing it all wrong, too.
It's dangerous when neuroscience starts moving merely from stating what is 'the norm' to defining what is normative.


Main Article : "Male and female brains wired differently, scans reveal"


"Scientists have drawn on nearly 1,000 brain scans to confirm what many had surely concluded long ago: that stark differences exist in the wiring of male and female brains.

Maps of neural circuitry showed that on average women's brains were highly connected across the left and right hemispheres, in contrast to men's brains, where the connections were typically stronger between the front and back regions.

Ragini Verma, a researcher at the University of Pennsylvania, said the greatest surprise was how much the findings supported old stereotypes, with men's brains apparently wired more for perception and co-ordinated actions, and women's for social skills and memory, making them better equipped for multitasking.

"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. So if there's a task that involves doing both of those things, it would seem that women are hardwired to do those better," Verma said. "Women are better at intuitive thinking. Women are better at remembering things. When you talk, women are more emotionally involved – they will listen more."

She added: "I was surprised that it matched a lot of the stereotypes that we think we have in our heads. If I wanted to go to a chef or a hairstylist, they are mainly men."

The findings come from one of the largest studies to look at how brains are wired in healthy males and females. The maps give scientists a more complete picture of what counts as normal for each sex at various ages. Armed with the maps, they hope to learn more about whether abnormalities in brain connectivity affect brain disorders such as schizophrenia and depression.

Verma's team used a technique called diffusion tensor imaging to map neural connections in the brains of 428 males and 521 females aged eight to 22. The neural connections are much like a road system over which the brain's traffic travels.

The scans showed greater connectivity between the left and right sides of the brain in women, while the connections in men were mostly confined to individual hemispheres. The only region where men had more connections between the left and right sides of the brain was in the cerebellum, which plays a vital role in motor control. "If you want to learn how to ski, it's the cerebellum that has to be strong," Verma said. Details of the study are published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

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.

"It's quite striking how complementary the brains of women and men really are," Ruben Gur, a co-author on the study, said in a statement. "Detailed connectome maps of the brain will not only help us better understand the differences between how men and women think, but it will also give us more insight into the roots of neurological disorders, which are often sex-related."

I do hope that we get some debate on this subject, which should be of interest to many of us?

hugs


Pauline xxxx



From the Guardian - here is the link to the article
http://www.theguardian.com/science/2013/dec/02/men-women-brains-wired-differently?CMP=EMCNEWEML6619I2

So men and women are wired differently, no surprise there,my wiring is well and truly confused.

To me there is a problem with this study - in science talk it's not a double blind. The connections are of people living in a society which already differentiates between men and women. If there is a strong environmental push for the children to react differently then their brains are likely to develop differently. From this site it is obvious that there is a strong societal push to conform to your birth gender and many have tried very hard. It would be interesting to look at the more corner cases rather than the majority. Unfortunately, I doubt any results would be published fairly.