Scientists have long known that male and female brains are distinct, but the degree of these differences, and whether they impact behavior is still somewhat of a mystery. However, the latest brain research has revealed some interesting differences between how the male and female brain is wired.

In order to study the brain's structural connectivity, researchers from University of Pennsylvania analyzed a large sample size of people from a variety of age groups. This involved scanning through the MRIs of 949 people aged 8 to 22.

What they found was that male brains have more connections within each hemisphere, while female brains are more interconnected between hemispheres. Female brains seemed to have a stronger connections between their logical and intuitive parts, meaning "when women are asked to do particularly hard tasks, they might engage very different parts of the brain." As for the guys, they tend to over-engage just one part of the brain. These differences were less evident in young children, but they became prominent in the scans of the adolescents.

Based on the findings, this could explain why men tend to see issues and resolve them directly, due to the strong connections between the "perception" and "action" areas of their brains; while women might be more inclined to combine logic and intuition when solving a problem.

[The Atlantic]