Women’s Intuition: It’s a Real Thing. Ask a Neuroscientist
To complete this study, brains of those whose sexual identity doesn’t correspond to their body parts should be also studied.
Scientists at Amen Clinics used SPECT (single photon emission computed tomography) imaging studies to monitor blood flow and activity patterns in the brain. They evaluated 46,000 studies on more than 25,000 men and women, including healthy individuals as well as those with a variety of psychiatric conditions, such as brain trauma, bipolar disorders, mood disorders and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. In total, 128 brain regions were analyzed on participants when they were at rest and again while they performed a 15-minute concentration task.
“I thought there would be differences, but I had no idea they’d be this significant,” says Daniel Amen, founder of Amen Clinics and lead author of the study. In addition to enhanced activity in the prefrontal cortex, the brains of women also showed more blood flow in the limbic or emotional areas, which involve mood, anxiety and depression. The hippocampus, or the memory center, was also more active in women’s brains. “If I make my wife mad, she doesn’t forget it,” Amen half-jokes.
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