Despite the long-held belief that the brains of men and women are not the same, there has been little concrete evidence to back it up — until now.
In a breakthrough study, a group of researchers from Stanford University demonstrated the differences between the brains of men and women by using artificial intelligence, which was more than 90% accurate in differentiating between sexes based on “hotspots” shown in brain scans.
“This is a very strong piece of evidence that sex is a robust determinant of human brain organization,” study author Dr. Vinod Menon, a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, said in a statement.
Scientists have long sought to reconcile whether male and female brains are comparable, which has implications for how we understand brain organization and operation.
Published Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the latest research reveals that “sex plays a crucial role” in cognitive development, aging and neurological disorders, according to Menon, who also serves as director of the Stanford Cognitive and Systems Neuroscience Laboratory.
The team employed AI to differentiate between brain scans, teaching the machine to flag unique patterns between the sexes.
Specifically, differences were identified in the brain’s default mode network, which is responsible for self-focus and introspection; the striatum, which plays a role in forming habits and rewards; and the limbic network, which regulates emotions.
When testing the model and showing it approximately 1,500 scans, the machine determined whether it was from a man or woman with 90% accuracy, suggesting the presence of sex-based differences in the brain.
They went one step further to develop another model that could predict people’s outcomes in behavioral tasks based on the sex-based differences already identified. When testing the model, they found that such functional differences in the brain could significantly impact behavior.
“This is a very strong piece of evidence that sex is a robust determinant of human brain organization,” said Menon, adding that “overlooking sex difference in brain organization” could hinder the treatment and diagnosis of neuropsychiatric conditions.
The researchers are hopeful their findings could help explain and better approach psychological or neurological differences between sexes. Women, for example, are more likely to develop depression, while men are more likely to experience addiction.
“Identifying consistent and replicable sex differences in the healthy adult brain is a critical step toward a deeper understanding of sex-specific vulnerabilities in psychiatric and neurological disorders,” Menon added.
The study’s conclusions contradict the conclusions of other experts who believe sex-based differences can be blamed on society.
Dr. Gina Rippon, author of “The Gendered Brain” and emeritus professor of cognitive neuroimaging at the Aston Brain Centre, told The Telegraph that the “hotspots” identified in the Stanford University study are “key parts of the social brain.”
“The key issue is whether these differences are a product of sex-specific, biological influences, or of brain-changing gendered experiences. Or both. Are we really looking at sex differences? Or gender differences?” she said.
“Or, acknowledging that almost all brain–shaping factors are dynamically entangled products of both sex and gender influences, are we looking at what should be called sex/gender differences?”