When it comes to the brain, women are at an advantage.
A new study suggests that men’s brains are not only smaller than women’s, but their memories are also worse, according to CNN News.
“That’s right, that’s what the data says,” stated Dr. Clifford Jack of the Mayo Clinic.
He continued, “We see worse memory and worse brain volumes in men than women from [age] 40s onward.”
The study reportedly consisted of 1,246 cognitively normal people between the ages of 30 and 95. The participants took standard memory tests and underwent two types of brains scans, including an MRI and PET, according to CBS Local.
Researchers reportedly found that although both men and women are affected by memory loss at age 30, male memory was worse than women overall, especially after age 40.
“There seems to be a profound effect of aging, itself, on memory — independent of amyloid,” Jack told HealthDay.
He continued, “We think that amyloid pathology tends to arise late in life, to accelerate a pre-existing decline in memory.”
In males, the hippocampus, the part of the brain that controls memory, was reportedly also smaller than women’s, especially after age 60.
“The men’s hippocampus starts off a little bit above average in the young people in the study,” stated neurologist Dr. Charles DeCarli, who reviewed the study before it was published in JAMA Neurology.
He added, “But then it falls way below average in the older men as compared to the older women.”
Researchers reportedly found that the decline in memory for both men and women had nothing to do with connection to brain disorders, such as Alzheimers.
“One of the big conclusions that had been drawn in the past was that the memory and brain-volume declines you see in middle age are probably due to underlying Alzheimer’s pathology,” stated Jack.
He continued, “What we found that was quite different is that these declines that begin in the 30s and continue through old age occur well before we see evidence of Alzheimer’s disease.”
