Women's Brains Are 'Four Years Younger' Than Men's, Study Finds (theguardian.com) 125
Women's brains are nearly four years younger than men's, at least in how they burn fuel, according to scans performed by U.S. researchers. "Scientists found that healthy women have a 'metabolic brain age' that is persistently younger than men's of the same chronological age," reports The Guardian. "The difference is apparent from early adulthood and remains into old age." From the report: The finding suggests that changes in how the brain uses energy over a person's lifetime proceed more gradually in women than they do in men. While researchers are unsure of the medical consequences, it may help explain why women tend to stay mentally sharp for longer. "Brain metabolism changes with age but what we noticed is that a good deal of the variation we see is down to sex differences," said Marcus Raichle, a neurobiologist at Washington University school of medicine in St Louis. "If you look at how brain metabolism predicts a person's age, women come out looking about four years younger than they are."
The scientists used a brain scanning technique called positron emission tomography to measure the flow of oxygen and glucose in the brains of 121 women and 84 men aged 20 to 82. The scans revealed how sugar was being turned into energy in different parts of the volunteers' brains. To see how brain metabolism differed between the sexes, the researchers used a computer algorithm to predict people's ages based on brain metabolism as measured by the scans. First, the scientists taught it to predict men's ages from metabolism data gleaned from the male brain scans. The striking result came when the scientists fed metabolism data from the women into the same program. While the program estimated male ages accurately, it judged the women's brains to be, on average, 3.8 years younger than their real ages. "The scientists then flipped the analysis around," the report adds. "They trained the algorithm to predict women's ages from data garnered from their brain scans. This time, when they fed metabolism data from the men into the computer, it estimated them to be 2.4 years older than they were. The way male brains burned sugar made them seem older than female ones of the same age." The study has been published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The scientists used a brain scanning technique called positron emission tomography to measure the flow of oxygen and glucose in the brains of 121 women and 84 men aged 20 to 82. The scans revealed how sugar was being turned into energy in different parts of the volunteers' brains. To see how brain metabolism differed between the sexes, the researchers used a computer algorithm to predict people's ages based on brain metabolism as measured by the scans. First, the scientists taught it to predict men's ages from metabolism data gleaned from the male brain scans. The striking result came when the scientists fed metabolism data from the women into the same program. While the program estimated male ages accurately, it judged the women's brains to be, on average, 3.8 years younger than their real ages. "The scientists then flipped the analysis around," the report adds. "They trained the algorithm to predict women's ages from data garnered from their brain scans. This time, when they fed metabolism data from the men into the computer, it estimated them to be 2.4 years older than they were. The way male brains burned sugar made them seem older than female ones of the same age." The study has been published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
I know why... (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Re:I know why... (Score:5, Interesting)
It is true.
Men are manipulated by testosterone to work harder, and take more risks than women. Men are highly motivated to engage in behaviours that attract a reproductive partner.
But if men are castrated, they live much longer, longer even than women. They stop doing so many silly dangerous things, and stop working so hard.
https://io9.gizmodo.com/men-ca... [gizmodo.com]
Re: (Score:2)
It's simply called stress but hey now, women's liberation, as the new set age, they will age with equal stress, well actually more stress than men because women's lib men are no longer stressing over protecting women. I wonder the age of men who are slackers, who do not hold the belief in reproduction or protection of breeders. How youthful are the brains of men who don't give a 'fuck' especially one that generates an eighteen year responsibility. How old is the brain of a man the retires early, lives the l
Re: (Score:3)
Can confirm it works on cats, but fortunately there is an easier and less drastic way to produce a somewhat similar effect in humans.
Re: (Score:2)
A sex change is more drastic than simple castration. Castration being a part of the operation.
Did you wake up screaming, like LIthgow's character in Garp? I think I'd miss my boys.
Re: (Score:2)
Wait... What? I said "less drastic".
Re: (Score:2)
(In case anyone forgot just how fucked liberal logic truly is today...)
You were doing well, until you got into that false dichotomy.
That "All liberals are vegan gender-fluid Social Justice Warriors", and "all conservatives are gun-toting racist climate-change-deniers" bullshit.
Most people are not on those extremes.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Well, no, some are. You can't generalize from what is actually a tiny minority.
Re: (Score:2)
Well, no, some are. You can't generalize from what is actually a tiny minority.
Men are not a tiny minority, and of course you can generalise. You must be unfamiliar with what the word means?
"Men in general have shorter lives than women. " Does that context help you understand what "generalise" means?
(And can I be mansplaining if I don't know your gender?)
Re: (Score:2)
Love how you quoted that article, as though it supported your claims.
Perhaps you should quote Jordan Peterson instead, he's far more your speed.
Re: (Score:2)
Love how you quoted that article, as though it supported your claims.
Perhaps you should quote Jordan Peterson instead, he's far more your speed.
"So you are saying ..." [google.com] nothing, come to think of it. Not even a counter-claim let alone a rational argument. What is the point of posting if you have nothing worthwhile to say?
Re: (Score:2)
So women are lazier than men and live longer.
"Lazy" is a word used by lazy people. It has no useful meaning, except as a pejorative.
Women and men, in aggregate, are motivated differently, and tend to make different choices.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
lol you're kidding right. Science only applies to white men, and only when it makes them look bad.
Men smrter (Score:1)
Scientific proof that men are more mature than women!
Boobs, fart, boobs, whatever.
So tired of the repeating (Score:1)
Go to editor school already, BeauHD.
I suspect that study could be called sexist (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Is anyone really that sensitive? I doubt it, but would be interested to see anyone actually complaining about this.
More likely is people complaining about a lack of effort/money put into men's health, which isn't entirely fair either.
Re: (Score:2)
Is anyone really that sensitive?
1. Besides incels?
2. YMBNH
Re: (Score:2)
What are they analysing? Sounds to me as if they look at brain activity patterns. So women are just thinking a bit more like children.
Oh, yeah?? if they are so smart .. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Oh, yeah?? if they are so smart .. (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:1)
If women figure out you they can buy jar opening tools we are in big trouble.
If dildos didn't make dicks obsolete, I feel pretty fucking confident in not being replaced by a can opener.
Just sayin.
Re: (Score:2)
That ends up with the ability to enjoy a lot of wealth and free time.
Re: (Score:2)
What makes you think the smartest ones marry men??
danger! (Score:5, Insightful)
If I'm reading this right, an AI model of the male brain is being asked to interpret a female brain as a male brain, and then to predict the age of such a male brain, which comes out lower than the age of the female brain masquerading as a male brain.
AI algorithms are notorious for finding any manner of correlation. How do you correct for brain size differences (or anything else) in such a study?
However, I wouldn't discard this study outright if I were planning to undergo a cross-sex brain transplant sometime soon.
Re: (Score:2)
No male brain can interpret a female brain, as evidenced by male/female relationships everywhere. The AI male brain had an impossible task.
Re: (Score:2)
I think this is just crap journalism. The "AI" is just an algorithm, like fitting the measurements to a curve that correlates the flow of oxygen and glucose with age. They calibrated the scale against male brains and then noticed that if they applied the same curve to female brains it tended to predict an average of four years younger.
Does that mean???? (Score:2)
Sugar (Score:2)
The scans revealed how sugar was being turned into energy in different parts of the volunteers' brains
Sugar ? My brain runs on beta-hydroxybutyrate, you insensitive clod.
Re: (Score:2)
Checked my privilege. Still where it belongs. But thank you for your concern.
earlier retirement (Score:5, Funny)
So as a male I should get to retire earlier . It seems only fair. I must be really old because I actually learned cobol.
Re: (Score:3)
Oh. Oh dear. There is an old story about the Cobol programmer who avoided the year 2000 crisis by being frozen in cryosleep. When he woke, he received good news and bad news. The bad news was that he'd oversept due to a year 2000 bug. The good news was that they were concerned about the year 10,000 coming up, and they'd fond him because they were desperately looking for someone who knew Cobol.
Re: (Score:2)
Well, this could be met with an outcry of "sexism".. but probably not, since there doesn't really seem to be any way to twist this into a form of feminine victimhood to exploit.
But I've read no shortage of liberals and feminists claiming there is no intrinsic difference between male and female brains, only hormones.
So are hormones supposed to solely responsible? The FA seems to suggest it's more than that.
Thats why younger men...... (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
I did that when I was a teenager myself. Lucky to be alive.
Re: (Score:2)
We do not actually have to imagine what the world would be like if white men could get funding for bad science that throws out data that fails to show that white men are superior, and cherry-picking what they prefer, do we?
Doesn't happen so much now, but it is undeniably exactly part of what made the world we live in.
The difference is a social construct... (Score:1)
Re:Sugar? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Every anon speaks from "the gut" because their brain is their liver and it's bloated by fructose and damaged by alcohol.
Re: (Score:2)
I'll drink to that.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: Biological (Score:3, Informative)
Thatâ(TM)s not true at all. In time periods where the average age of death was considerably lower it was infant mortality pulling it down. Once you hit 18 it wasnâ(TM)t uncommon to make it into the 60â(TM)s.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
GP is just flat wrong. He likes to post that incorrect fact.
It is true that a lucky few always lived to old age. But the death rate was high throughout their lives. Particularly high for infants, but high for everyone at every age. Especially child bearing years for women.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Doubtful. The human lifespan was never long enough for it to matter until recently. Most people were dead in their 30s.
This is a myth. In earlier times, average lifespan was short because of high childhood mortality. But if you made it past 5, you were likely to live to 50, 60, or 70.
The presence of a maternal grandmother in the household is correlated with better child and maternal health. Interestingly, the presence of a paternal grandmother has an overall negative effect. So women actually have a scientific basis for hating their mother-in-law.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
No they did not.
For what fucked upped reason would they?
Ramses was 99 or something ...
Re: (Score:2)
Re: Biological (Score:2, Informative)
Pot meet kettle
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_expectancy
Based on the data from modern hunter-gatherer populations, it is estimated that at 15, life expectancy was an additional 39 years (total 54), with a 0.60 probability of reaching 15.
https://www.quora.com/What-was-the-life-expectancy-of-humans-in-prehistoric-times
The average life span was 35 in the paleolithic, but that is taking all the life spans and adding them and dividing, that brings it down due to the high infant mortality rate, those who su
Re: (Score:2)
Ramses was 99 or something ...
You're confusing longevity with life expectancy.
Re: (Score:3)
No, I don't. The parent is. I just picked a prominent example.
Re: (Score:2)
And Tutankhamun died when he was about 20, so what?
A single measuring point means jack. But Wikipedia [wikipedia.org] has an answer, as usual. In general it seems that our life expectancy went down sharply as we went from hunter/gatherer to a more sessile lifestyle, before it recovered slowly.
Re: (Score:2)
He got murdered, so what?
The idea that you randomly died between 30 and 100 because you lived in prehistoric times is idiotic.
You only died to accidents or sickness, just the same as in our days.
Re: (Score:2)
With the difference that more accidents and sicknesses were deadly or at the very least had a much higher mortality.
Many things that could not be cured back then can be cured today. Plus, we know that certain things are simply not healthy, like eating from lead dishes or using mercury as if it had any medical use. And while some are trying to turn back time by giving quackery a renaissance and prematurely end their life drinking bleach and eating cyanide, in general we do know how to eat and live healthier,
Re: (Score:2)
This is a myth. In earlier times, average lifespan was short because of high childhood mortality. But if you made it past 5, you were likely to live to 50, 60, or 70.
No, that is a myth.
From Wikipedia, in Classical Greece, "Based on Athens Agora and Corinth data, total life expectancy at 15 would be 37â"41 years"
Re:Biological (Score:5, Interesting)
But that's not the statistic of interest. If we had the all the data available, the statistic of interest is the life expectancy at birth, split for only those people who bring a child into this world who also brings a child into this world.
In other words, grandparent-caliber people, with some staying power in the gene pool, who put in the long hearth years.
That group of people could quite easily have a life expectancy at birth of 50 or more years, even with the number you've quoted above.
Especially considering that it wasn't uncommon for a male child to reach adulthood, join an army, and not survive to start any family, whatsoever (who's tragic death at age 18 or 22 would be excluded from my split above).
Re: (Score:2)
If I may point out, members of a species who are not "average" affect the genetics of the whole species. Look at any species where one gender vastly outnumbers the other for an example. Among humans, the older ones have long provided knowledge that could be useful, such as a deeper knowledge of migration routes, weather, and unusual species.