Neuroplasticity

The female brain is geared for complex thinking and reasoning, weighing all their options, carefully and thoroughly as discussed in my last blog. It can also be concluded that where women look for and remember context, men look for and remember factual content.
I’m very interested about the relatively new branch of neuroscience called Neuroplasticity, which studies how we take the brain we were born with and grow and change it throughout our lifetime, even in old age. When we studied the brain in our youth this was thought to be impossible.

Research in Neuroplasticity shows that the brain is capable of change as a result of experience.
UCLA Med School, Clinical Prof of Psychiatry, Daniel J. Siegel, MD, writes that the brain/body is the “Physical structure and mechanisms for the flow of information and energy throughout the system”. And he defines the mind relative to the brain, within the context of relationship with others and the outer world. He says that the mind is “Embodied and embedded within a relational process that regulates the flow of energy and information”.

In 2001 Leslie Brothers, PhD, in agreement with Siegel, says that “Our ‘neural machinery’ enables participation”

In summary Segal says that not only does the brain change the mind but the mind also changes the brain.

I look forward to interacting with you. Please share your thoughts, comments and ideas with me.

Best Regards

Mary

Neurobiology – The Big Differences

In my previous blog post I explained in short that neuroscientists have found that the 8% difference between the male and female brain has already generated over 100 differences with this number still growing as more and more research is done.

It goes without saying that after 1000s of years of evolution, the male neurobiology was naturally adapted to hunting, farming, protecting and building, in essence, an outdoor way of thinking. As a result men have only ‘come indoors’, so to speak, en masse since the Industrial Revolution (1780 in Europe, 1860 in South Africa), but this change in the course of evolution is not a long time period.

The history of female neurobiology is therefore naturally adapted to nurturing, educating and managing people and processes; these are the things that women continue to do at home or in the workplace.

Please do get involved, share your thoughts, comments and ideas with me. I look forward to hearing your ideas and interacting with you.

Best Regards

Mary

Overview of Brain Differences & Neuroplasticity

As I briefly explained in my previous blog post, there’s an 8% difference between the female and male brain, which seems like very little until you consider that the difference the 2-5% 8% difference between a human and chimpanzee brain where we share 95 to 98 percent of the same DNA, according to the Jane Goodall Institute in Washington, D.C. More information about this report can be found at Monkeyland.

It’s time to explore more deeply into the differences that we all see in each other, brain based “sex” distinctions rather than to rely on culturally driven differences of past.

Neuroscientists found that the 8% has already generated over 100 differences and this number is growing. Let’s face it we all live with these differences every day, some subtle and some not so subtle.

Neuroscientists are still discovering how many of these differences are driven by DNA and hormonal variations i.e.: “biologically driven” and how many of these are considered “lifetime influences” - those driven by upbringing and culture which are referred to as the neuroplastic influences.

Please feel free to get involved, share your thoughts, comments and ideas with me. I look forward to interacting with you.

Best Regards

Mary

Brain Exchange Solutions

As many of you may know the focus of my attention over the past five years has been my fascination of the brain with particular emphasis regarding the differences between the male and female brain.

While writing my thesis for my Mphil at the University of Stellenbosch Business School I have been keeping updated as to the latest research in neuroplasticity and how you can change the way that you think and act for yourself and support that change in others.

What I have found is that there are clear gender distinctions, 92% of the brain is the same in both males and females, but the remaining 8% makes all the difference! Men and women think and make decisions, process feelings and relate differently. ‘Sex differences’ in the brain are genetic while gender roles and behaviors may be influenced by cultural distinctions.  I feel that all of our societal institutions need to be adjusted to take these sex differences into consideration.

My research will aid others in understanding how to work and be with other people of the same and opposite sex whether it’s for coaching, in business environments or even for personal relationships.

Please feel free to get involved, share your thoughts, comments and ideas with me. I look forward to interacting with you.

Best Regards

Mary

How women and men really think and feel

Only in the last five years Magnetic Resonance Images (MRIs) have isolated the differences between the way male and female brains actually work.

You’d be surprised how different we actually are.

Neuroscience can finally put paid to some of our myths about each other, and we can finally usher in a stage of new learning about how to better communicate and work with each other.

One of the first myths is that men are left-brained and women are right-brained. While men do have a left-brained bias, women have a larger corpus collosum (the web of nerves that connect the two hemispheres of the brain) and many thousands more neurons that connect all the parts of the highly complex female brain, making the average woman truly both-brained. And a female has 6-7 centres for speech throughout the brain, whereas men have 1 or 2 only in the left hemisphere.  What this means is that women can process thoughts and feelings all at once and can use words to both track the process and describe it.
That should come as no surprise to their partners or male work colleagues who find it difficult to listen to women talk through their processes! 

The second, and related, myth is that men are the thinkers and women are the feelers. The fact is that men feel a lot, but just don’t always have words to describe their feelings and take longer to truly process an emotional issue. Women on the other hand initially bundle their feelings, thoughts and words, and need more time to separate them out, formulate comprehensive ideas and communicate them logically. While the male brain looks for expedient and strategic deductions, the female brain includes greater detail, more depth and breadth to her conclusions. Both perspectives are necessary to any complex decision-making process, both at home and at work.

No wonder we were designed to fit together!

I’ll be exploring more of these differences in up-coming blogs.