At first glaudies of the braio offer a way out of this age-old naturebrnurture dilemma. Any differen the structure or activation of male and female brains is indisputably biological. However, the assumption that such differences are also innate or 25"hardwired" is invalid, given all we''ve learned about the plasticity, or malleability of the brain. Simply put, experiences ge our brains.
Ret rearch by Peg Nopoulos, Jessica Wood and colleagues at the Uy of Iowa illustrates just how difficult it is to untangle 30nature and nurture, even at the level of brain structure. A first study, published in March 2008 found that one subdivision of the ventral prefrontal cortex - an area involved in social ition and interpersonal judgment - is proportionally larger in women, pared to men. （Men''s brains are 35about 10 pert larger than women''s, overall, so any parison of specific brain regions must be scaled in proportion to this differehis subdivision, known as the straight gyrus （SG）, is a narrow strip of cerebral cortex running along the midline on the undersurface of the frontal lobe. 40Wood and colleagues found the SG to be about 10 pert larger ihirty womeudied, pared to thirty men （after correg for males'' larger brain size）. What''s more, they found that the size of the SG correlated with a widely-ud test of social ition, so that individuals 45（both male and female） who scored higher in interpersonal awareness also teo have larger SGs.
At first glaudies of the braio offer a way out of this age-old naturebrnurture dilemma. Any differen the structure or activation of male and female brains is indisputably biological. However, the assumption that such differences are also innate or 25"hardwired" is invalid, given all we''ve learned about the plasticity, or malleability of the brain. Simply put, experiences ge our brains.
Ret rearch by Peg Nopoulos, Jessica Wood and colleagues at the Uy of Iowa illustrates just how difficult it is to untangle 30nature and nurture, even at the level of brain structure. A first study, published in March 2008 found that one subdivision of the ventral prefrontal cortex - an area involved in social ition and interpersonal judgment - is proportionally larger in women, pared to men. （Men''s brains are 35about 10 pert larger than women''s, overall, so any parison of specific brain regions must be scaled in proportion to this differehis subdivision, known as the straight gyrus （SG）, is a narrow strip of cerebral cortex running along the midline on the undersurface of the frontal lobe. 40Wood and colleagues found the SG to be about 10 pert larger ihirty womeudied, pared to thirty men （after correg for males'' larger brain size）. What''s more, they found that the size of the SG correlated with a widely-ud test of social ition, so that individuals 45（both male and female） who scored higher in interpersonal awareness also teo have larger SGs.