A panel of neuroscientists from the University of California and universities of Madrid suggest that women may have smaller brains than men, but they are more efficient at completing a task.
For long, scientists were puzzled over why women show no difference in intelligence, although their brains are 8% smaller than men’s. The study found that women’s brain is more efficient, which needs fewer neurons and less energy to complete a task than a man’s.
[Read: Brain Foods for a Healthy Mind]
Several psychological tests were conducted on 59 women and 45 men (18-27 age-group). Scientists found that in women the hippocampus, a brain component that plays the lead role in memory, intelligence and emotion, takes less energy and uses fewer brain cells on a given task than in men.
Women outperformed men in inductive reasoning, numerical skills and were better at keeping track of a changing situation. Men outperformed women only on spatial intelligence.
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