Besides the Universe, the second object that more mysteries embodies for science because of its complexity is right above our shoulders. Furthermore, he is responsible for the reader's ability to understand each word of this text and master a sophisticated activity of recognition and interpretation of information through a sign language such as reading: the human brain.
It is the most important organ of the central nervous system. A wrinkled-looking gray mass that floats on cerebrospinal fluid protected by the skull and responsible for more than a billion trillion synaptic connections. With just under a kilo and a half of weight, it is the most enigmatic part of the human anatomy and the one that is least known so far. There are different theories about its evolution and the complexity of the different mental processes, but from the language and even the conscience, the knowledge that one has about its functioning is primitive with respect to its creative potential.
One of the most common questions regarding the particularities of the brain lies in the difference between the sexes. Traditionally, different scientific studies consider that there are insurmountable inequalities between the brains of men and women. Such differences have been used throughout history to justify the behavior of both sexes, establishing stereotypes between the masculine and feminine mentality.
Although medical science in the past considered that there were no significant differences between both brains, the most ambitious study ever undertaken to discover distinctions in brain anatomy between men and women yielded results that could change the way we understand each sex from his thought. Dr. Stuart Ritchie, specialist in Psychology at the University of Edinburgh, used more than 500,000 data available in the UK Biobank (a scientific initiative of the United Kingdom for the collection of information on the organs of the human body) to scan brains and decipher if the information thrown through magnetic resonance was enough to discover if it was a man or a woman.
The result was statistically notorious: in about 77% of the cases it was possible to correctly identify the sex of the brain in question. According to Ritchie, the most significant difference between the central nervous system of the sexes of our species is in the size: male brains have a greater volume than those of their female counterpart, not only in the total of gray matter, also in specific areas of the same.
The amygdala, the hippocampus, the striatum and the thalamus of men are visibly larger than the same regions in women. However, the anatomy of the female central nervous system has a thicker cerebral cortex than the male, an element that seems decisive in obtaining a higher result in the tests of cognitive abilities and intelligence.
Although this is a big step, in reality, none of the above characteristics is able to define with certainty whether the male or female brain manifest a greater ability than the other to solve complex problems, communicate efficiently and enhance the thinking of according to the contemporary definition of intelligence. This is even more complicated when intelligence is recognized as a relative concept, powerfully influenced by the social context, which in turn maintains a false halo of masculine superiority in everything related to the development of creative, scientific or artistic thought. Sufficient reasons why the first step to approach a real response based on science should be addressed to gender equality, the end of machismo and the incursion of the female sex in all the spaces from which it has been historically rejected, and vice versa.