Scientists found the wiring in male and female brains differ, and may explain some common gender stereotypes.
A research team found greater connectivity from the front of the male brain to the back in a certain hemisphere while females had a stronger connection between wiring between the left and right hemispheres, a Penn Medicine news release reported.
This suggests men have a greater connection between perception and coordinated action while women's brains are better equipped to have a communication between the analytical and intuition.
"These maps show us a stark difference--and complementarity--in the architecture of the human brain that helps provide a potential neural basis as to why men excel at certain tasks, and women at others," Ragini Verma an associate professor in the department of Radiology at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, said.
This means men may be better at "learning and performing a single task," but women's superior memory and social cognition give them a greater multitasking ability and render them more competent in coming up with group solutions.
Past studies have found a significant difference between male and female brains, but this is the first time the exact wiring variation has been pinpointed.
The team looked at the brain development of 949 individuals (521 females and 428 males) between the ages of eight and 22 using diffusion tensor imaging (DTI). This technique allows researchers to view the fiber pathways connecting different areas of the brain.
"In the study, the researchers found that females displayed greater connectivity in the supratentorial region, which contains the cerebrum, the largest part of the brain, between the left and right hemispheres. Males, on the other hand, displayed greater connectivity within each hemisphere," the news release reported.
The authors noticed less of a difference in children under 13, but it became more pronounced as the subjects grew older.
"It's quite striking how complementary the brains of women and men really are," Dr. Ruben Gur, professor of Psychiatry, Neurology and Radiology, said. "Detailed connectome maps of the brain will not only help us better understand the differences between how men and women think, but it will also give us more insight into the roots of neurological disorders, which are often sex related."
