“Why are men better at sports?”…This part of the brain is bigger than women from birth

It has been shown that men and women have different brain structures from birth. Women had larger gray matter regions associated with memory and emotion regulation, while men had larger white matter regions associated with sensory processing and motor control.

A research team from the Autism Research Center at the University of Cambridge, UK, analyzed data from more than 500 people who participated in the Developing Human Connectome Project, in which newborns receive MRI brain scans immediately after birth.

The research team found that, on average, male babies had much larger brain volumes than female babies. Even when birth weight was taken into account, this difference remained. When considering overall brain size, women had significantly more gray matter and men had significantly more white matter.

Gray matter is composed of neuron cell bodies and dendrites and plays an important role in processing and interpreting information related to sensation, perception, learning, language, and cognition. White matter is made up of axons, long nerve fibers that connect neurons in different brain regions, enabling communication throughout the brain.

“We know there are differences in the brains of older children and adults, but this shows that these differences are present from birth,” said Yumna Khan, a doctoral student who led the study. “It can be reflected,” he said.

Professor Simon Baron-Cohen, director of the Autism Research Centre, said: “These differences do not mean that male and female brains are better or worse. This is an example of neurodiversity and is an important step towards understanding the brains of children diagnosed with autism. “It can help,” he said.

This study was published under the title ‘Sex Differences in Human Brain Structure at Birth’ in the academic journal ‘Biology of Sex Differences’.