Scientists Find There’s No Such Thing As A Male or Female Brain

The hunt for proof that there is a male brain and a female brain has come up short: there is no such thing.

According to the study carried out at the University of Tel Aviv, Israel, most people have a mix of male and female brain features, but there is no definitive male or female brain.

The researchers compared scans of 1400 people aged between 13 and 85′s brains. They found 29 brain regions that tend to be different sizes in males and females - but very few people’s scans showed all the features that were expected based on their genders.

So although there are differences between brain structures, very few people have “all-male” or “all-female” brains. Between 0% and 8%, in fact.

“Most people are in the middle,” says Daphna Joel at Tel Aviv University. “There are not two types of brain.”

The study disproves an old assumption about how gender affects brain development. She told New Scientist. “The theory goes that once a fetus develops testicles, they secrete testosterone which masculinises the brain. If that were true, there would be two types of brain.”

“We separate girls and boys, men and women all the time,” she says. “It’s wrong, not just politically, but scientifically – everyone is different.”

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