Gender and Map Reading, #1

For several years now research studies related to gender differences have provided interesting tidbits on how male and female brains differ. For example, common wisdom has been that the male brain seems to be better at map reading. There are always exceptions because each brain is so individualized. Some women are better at map-reading than some men, but the generalization is in favor of the male brain. Women, on the other hand, appear to be better at recalling the content of conversations. A pioneering study at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia has shown for the first time that the brains of men and women are wired up differently. Turns out that many of the connections in a typical male brain run between the front and the back of the same side of the brain, whereas in a typical female brain the connections are more likely to run from side to side between the left and right hemispheres of the brain. This goes along with earlier studies that indicated the Corpus Callosum, the largest band of horizontal connecting fibers in the brain, tends to be larger in the female brain.