How Men And Women Process Emotions Differently
Are women "wired" to be more emotional? Not exactly -- but
new research provides more evidence that the male
and female brain may have very different ways of processing emotion.
Previous research has shown that women generally experience
higher levels of emotional stimulation than men. Now, a new large-scale study
from the University of Basel suggests that gender differences in emotion
processing are also linked to sex variation in memory and brain activity.
The Basel researchers designed an
experiment to determine whether women perform better on memory tests than men
because of the way that they process emotional information. The researchers
exposed 3,400 test participants to images of emotional content, finding that
women rated these images as more emotionally stimulating than men, particularly
in the case of negative images. When presented with emotionally neutral
imagery, however, the men and women responded similarly.
After being exposed to the images, the
participants completed a memory test. The female participants were able to
recall significantly more of the images than their male counterparts. The women
had a particularly enhanced ability to recall the positive images. The study's
lead author, Dr. Annette Milnik, explained, "This would suggest that
gender-dependent differences in emotional processing and memory are due to
different mechanisms."
Then, fMRI data from 700 participants
suggested that womens' stronger reactivity to negative emotional images is
linked with increased activity of motor regions of the brain.
Previous studies have suggested that
women display heightened facial and motor reactions to negative emotional
stimuli.
"In our study, we see a similar
pattern with the fMRI data," Milnik said in an email to The Huffington
Post. "One possible explanation would be that women might be better
prepared to physically react to negative stimuli than males. Another
explanation would be from normative expectations, with women being expected to
be more emotional, and also to express more emotions."
The findings may help scientists to come
to a better understanding of gender differences in neuropsychiatric conditions,
which may pave the way for improved treatment options.
"Women are more likely to develop
major depression, anxiety disorder, and post-traumatic stress disorder, all of
which are related to emotional dysregulation," Milnik said. "We hope
that understanding the neural correlates of sex-specific emotional processing will
be an important step towards elucidating the mechanisms linked to sex-dependent
emotional dysregulation."
The
findings were published in the Journal of Neuroscience.
The Huffington Post | By Carolyn Gregoire
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