The Female Brain Quotes
"Male brains are larger by about 9 percent, even after correcting for body size."
"Women and men, however, have the same number of brain cells."
"The cells are just packed more densely in women—cinched corsetlike into a smaller skull."
"Until the 1990s, researchers paid little attention to female physiology, neuroanatomy, or psychology separate from that of men."
"We never use females in these studies—their menstrual cycles would just mess up the data."
"The female brain is so deeply affected by hormones that their influence can be said to create a woman’s reality."
"Each hormone state—girlhood, the adolescent years, the dating years, motherhood, and menopause—acts as fertilizer for different neurological connections."
"A woman’s neurological reality is not as constant as a man’s."
"His is like a mountain that is worn away imperceptibly over the millennia by glaciers, weather, and the deep tectonic movements of the earth."
"Hers is more like the weather itself—constantly changing and hard to predict."
"New tools, such as positron-emission tomography (PET) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scans, now allow us to see inside the human brain in real time."
"Men and women have different brain sensitivities to stress and conflict."
"They use different brain areas and circuits to solve problems, process language, experience and store the same strong emotion."
"The female and male brains process stimuli, hear, see, "sense," and gauge what others are feeling in different ways."
"Our distinct female and male brain operating systems are mostly compatible and adept, but they perform and accomplish the same goals and tasks using different circuits."
"In the brain centers for language and hearing, for example, women have 11 percent more neurons than men."
"Sexual thoughts float through a man’s brain many times each day on average, and through a woman’s only once a day."
"This means that women are, on average, better at expressing emotions and remembering the details of emotional events."
"Men, by contrast, have two and a half times the brain space devoted to sexual drive as well as larger brain centers for action and aggression."
"These basic structural variances could explain perceptive differences."
"Men also have larger processors in the core of the most primitive area of the brain, which registers fear and triggers aggression—the amygdala."
"The psychological stress of conflict registers more deeply in areas of the female brain."
"Biological instincts are the keys to understanding how we are wired."
"If you’re aware of the fact that a biological brain state is guiding your impulses, you can choose not to act or to act differently than you might feel compelled."
"Biology powerfully affects but does not lock in our reality."
"We can alter that reality and use our intelligence and determination both to celebrate and, when necessary, to change the effects of sex hormones on brain structure, behavior, reality, creativity—and destiny."
"Although 80 percent of women are only mildly affected by these monthly hormone changes, about 10 percent say they get extremely edgy and easily upset."
"Those women with the least estrogen and progesterone are more sensitive to stress and have fewer serotonin brain cells."
"For these most stress-sensitive individuals, the final days before their periods start can be hell on earth."
"Hormone and serotonin changes can result in a malfunction in the brain’s seat of judgment."
"Most blame themselves for their flare-ups of bad behavior."
"The very structure of their brains is changing, from day to day and from week to week."
"Women who have committed crimes while suffering from PMDD have successfully used it as a defense."
"It may be, they conclude, that women with PMDD are in some sense 'allergic' to fluctuations in estrogen and progesterone."
"Instead of removing Shana’s ovaries, I gave her a hormone to keep her estrogen and progesterone at moderately high but constant levels."
"A girl’s emotional centers become highly responsive at puberty."
"Teenagers, therefore, often cling to an idea and run with it, not stopping to consider the consequences."
"Without the fast connection to the prefrontal cortex, big downloads of emotional impulses often result in immediate, raw behaviors."
"Calming down the fired up teen girl amygdala can prove difficult."
"Teens state their intentions—and feel them—with such passion—that you can be persuaded in spite of yourself."
"Given the fact that the teen brain is undergoing major changes, especially in areas that are particularly sensitive to shifts in hormones, puberty can be an outrageously impulsive time for many girls."
"Female ancestors who faced these challenges alone were likely to have been less successful in propagating their genes."
"Male brains have a different neurological love wiring."
"Once a person is in love, the cautious, critical-thinking pathways in the brain shut down."
"Being in love, however, requires making room in your life and your brain for the beloved, actually incorporating him into your self-image."
"The basic drive for romantic attachment is hardwired in the brain."
"The exceptional bonding power of oxytocin and vasopressin has been studied in great detail."
"The brain is virtually in a drug-withdrawal state."
"The drive to fall in love is always hovering in the background."
"The hormone rushes of dopamine in the brain gradually calm down."
"Social attachment behavior is controlled by neurohormones, made in the pituitary and the hypothalamus."
"The love lives of different subspecies of voles also offer insights into brain mechanisms for monogamy."
"Males who had a longer version of the vasopressin receptor gene showed greater monogamy."
"Women, because they can have only one child every nine months, want to form faithful partnerships with men who will help raise those children."
"Despite some scientists’ belief that there is no purpose in female orgasm, it actually works to keep a woman lying down after sex."
"This increased chance of conception with a sexy partner might be why women typically are more attracted to other men on the second week of their menstrual cycle."
"I marvel that at this age I still feel myself expanding, reaching out and beyond the boundaries of self to become more enlightened."
"Perimenopause is like adolescence—without the fun."
"Postmenopausal zest is a phrase coined by the anthropologist Margaret Mead. It is a time when we no longer have to be concerned with birth control, PMS, painful cramps, or other monthly gynecological inconveniences."
"Make your own damn dinner or go out by yourself. For the last time, I’m not hungry."
"I’ve made three times the amount you’ve made, so stop belittling me."
"All her life Sylvia had prided herself on being coy, accommodating, and willing to let her husband win—especially when he came home exhausted and on edge from the office."
"Being this emotionally sensitive has its pros and cons."
"The female brain becomes less sensitive to estrogen, touching off a cascade of symptoms that can vary from month to month and year to year, ranging from hot flashes and joint pain to anxiety and depression."
"The urge to connect, the highly tuned desire and ability to read emotions could sometimes compel her to help even in hopeless cases."
"Filters came off, her irritability increased, and her anger wasn’t headed for that extra 'stomach' anymore, to be chewed over before it came out."
"Studies show that women who are unhappy with their marriages report more negative moods and illnesses during the menopause years."
"Neither of them was yet aware of the changing reality in her brain, which was rewriting the rules not just for arguing but for every interaction of their relationship."
"More than 65 percent of divorces after the age of fifty are initiated by women."
"The contribution of work to a woman’s personality, identity, and fulfillment once again becomes as important as it may have been before the mommy brain took over."
"The protective effect estrogen appears to have on female brain function is one reason scientists are carefully reconsidering the results of the Women’s Health Initiative in 2002."
"Understanding what is happening in our brains at each phase, however, is an important first step in controlling our destiny."
"We are living in the midst of a revolution in consciousness about women’s biological reality that will transform human society."
"They had renegotiated the rules for the next phase of their life."
"Learning how to harness the female brainpower we have will help us each become the woman we ought to be."
"The optimal number of fathers: Evolution, demography, and history in the shaping of female mate preferences."
"Sex differences in the responses of the human amygdala."
"Sexual orientation: A matter of brain wiring."
"Maternal care and the development of stress responses."
"Stressful life events and previous episodes in the etiology of major depression in women."
"Menstrual cycle phase effects on prepulse inhibition of acoustic startle."
"Estrogen and hearing: A summary of recent investigations."
"The effects of gender and hormonal status on the physiological response to acute psychosocial stress."
"The programming of individual differences in defensive responses and reproductive strategies."
"Sex differences in brain activity related to general and emotional intelligence."
"Comparable cortical activation with differential behavioural performance on mental rotation and overt verbal fluency tasks in healthy men and women."
"Sex differences in age association with brain volume: A quantitative MRI study of healthy young adults."
"Estrogen supplementation attenuates glucocorticoid and catecholamine responses to mental stress in perimenopausal women."
"Maternal touch and maternal child-directed speech: Effects of depressed mood in the postnatal period."
"Comparable fMRI activity with differential behavioural performance on mental rotation and overt verbal fluency tasks in healthy men and women."
"The neuroanatomy of general intelligence: Sex matters."
"Sexual differentiation of human brain and behavior."
"Stress, genes, and the mechanism of programming the brain for later life."
"Maternal care, gene expression, and the transmission of individual differences in stress reactivity across generations."
"Sex differences and individual differences in cognitive performance and their relationship to endogenous gonadal hormones and gonadotropins."
"The neural control of maternal behavior and olfactory recognition of offspring."
"Sex differences in the development of learning abilities in primates."
"The influence of testosterone on human aggression."
"Sex differences in emotion: Expression, experience, and physiology."
"Estrogen increases the frequency of multiple synapse boutons in the hippocampal CA1 region of the adult female rat."