Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!ucsd!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!aecom!werner
From: werner@aecom.yu.edu (Craig Werner)
Newsgroups: sci.bio
Subject: Re: Men and women
Message-ID: <2541@aecom.yu.edu>
Date: 22 Oct 89 23:35:35 GMT
References: <55243@tiger.oxy.edu>
Organization: Albert Einstein Coll. of Med., NY
Lines: 29

In article <55243@tiger.oxy.edu>, palosaari@oxy.edu (Jedidiah Jon Palosaari) writes:
> I heard somewhere that scientists have found in recent studies that there
> is a difference in the brain structure of men and women, in that women
> have a major connection between the right and left halves of the brain,
> whereas men do not.  I was also told that this means that women can use both
> sides of their brain at the same time, whereas men have difficulty doing
> that 

	It ain't that simple.  The connection is the Corpus callosum.
Both men and women have it.  However, as a percentage of brain mass it is
bigger in women than in men.  Actually, in absolute terms it is almost
the same size, but you 	have to take into account that on the average men's
brains are larger than women's, mostly because on the average men's
bodies are larger than women's and there is a roughly proportional
relationship.  It is not clear whether this represents any functional
difference.
	There is also a nucleus in the hypothalamus which is much larger
in males than in females in a variety of mammalian species. Since the
name of this nuclei betrays only this fact, and nothing about function,
I'm not sure you can make any judgments on the SDN (Sexually Dimorphic
Nucleus) of the hypothalamus, unless somebody knows something about it
that's more recent than about three years old. (Three years ago, the fact
that it really existed was big news, and that's the last I heard of it.)

-- 
	        Craig Werner   (future MD/PhD, 4.5 years down, 2.5 to go)
	     werner@aecom.YU.EDU -- Albert Einstein College of Medicine
              (1935-14E Eastchester Rd., Bronx NY 10461, 212-931-2517)
                         "I wouldn't have invited me either."