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A study comparing male and female brains is touting the largest differences yet discovered, which the authors say could have big implications for mental health.
Dr Richard Watts, an Adjunct Professor at the University of Canterbury’s Faculty of Health, led the research based on 1000 hyper-detailed MRI scans of adults between 22 and 35-years-old.
He told Nine to Noon the study revealed significant differences between male and female brains that cannot typically be seen.
Traditionally when people have looked at the differences between male and female brains they have really just concentrated on what the brain looks like in terms of size and shape,” he said.
“But there’s almost no difference there apart from the fact that males have larger bodies, larger heads and somewhat larger brains. You can’t tell whether a given brain is male or female.”
The MRI scans captured differences on a cellular level, Dr Watts said.
“The structures we found had big differences, these structures are deep within the brain: The amygdala, the hippocampus, and the thalamus,” he said.
“These are structures which are involved in emotional regulation, things like memory and learning. We found these structures were different between men and women, and this may tell us something about the different risks for mental illness in men and women.”
He said men and women faced different levels of risk for various mental illnesses.
“Women are more susceptible to things like depression and anxiety, men are more susceptible to attention problems and aggression,” he explained.
Dr Richard Watts.
Photo: supplied by UC
“We found there were associations between the measurements we were getting from these structures deep within the brain and the self-reported measures of things like depression, anti-social behaviour and attention issues.”
He clarified the participants were grouped by gender, not biological sex.
“The participants were asked what their gender is, and they were only given a choice of male or female, so we don’t know whether our findings relate directly to biological sex or whether they relate to gender,” he said.
But the results could be a breakthrough for mental health research, he said.
“The importance of looking at these differences is if we find things that are then predictive of whether someone will develop a mental illness … that can be hugely important,” he said.
“For example, if we look at children and we can find some kind of marker that suggests a particular child is likely to develop a mental illness in the future we can intervene at an earlier stage.”
