[Paleopsych] BH: Men and Women: Same IQ, Different Brain

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Men and Women: Same IQ, Different Brain
http://www.betterhumans.com/Print/index.aspx?ArticleID=2005-01-21-3

Significant differences found in intelligence-related areas

    Betterhumans Staff
    1/21/2005 2:13 PM

    Men and women appear to employ different brain organization to achieve
    the same level of general intelligence.

    Brain imaging has revealed that men have more [8]gray matter related
    to intellectual ability while women have more [9]white matter.

    Gray matter refers to information processing centers while white
    matter refers to connections between the processing centers.

    Men have about 6.5 times as much general intelligence gray matter as
    women while women have about 10 times as much white matter, report
    researchers from the [10]University of California, Irvine and the
    [11]University of New Mexico.

    "These findings suggest that human evolution has created two different
    types of brains designed for equally intelligent behavior," says
    researcher Richard Haier of the University of California, Irvine. "In
    addition, by pinpointing these gender-based intelligence areas, the
    study has the potential to aid research on dementia and other
    cognitive-impairment diseases in the brain."

    Mental maps

    Using such tools as [12]magnetic resonance imaging and cognitive
    tests, Haier and colleagues produced brain maps that correlated brain
    tissue volume with [13]IQ.

    Besides finding differences in amounts of white and gray matter, the
    researchers also found regional differences. Intelligence-related gray
    matter, for example, appears to be distributed throughout the brain in
    men while in women it's more localized to the [14]frontal lobe.

    Regionalization may help explain why women and men appear to be
    hardwired to excel at different tasks, such as mathematics for men and
    language facility for women. Overall, however, says study coauthor Rex
    Jung of the University of New Mexico, the different brain
    organizations produce equivalent overall performance on broad
    cognitive measures such as intelligence tests.

    The research supports clinical findings that women are more
    cognitively affected by frontal brain injuries. They could ultimately
    help improve the diagnosis and treatment of brain disorders in men and
    women.

    The research is reported in the journal [15]NeuroImage ([16]read
    abstract).

References

    8. http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grey_matter
    9. http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_matter
   10. http://www.uci.edu/
   11. http://www.unm.edu/
   12. http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/magnetic_resonance_imaging
   13. http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/IQ
   14. http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/frontal_lobe
   15. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/10538119
   16. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2004.11.019