We do that because our brains are different. I'm not sure how much it's appreciated how different they are. Shors and co-workers at Rutgers University taught rats to perform new tricks. They found that female rats learn much better than male rats at the time of their normal reproductive cycle when their estrogen levels were high. But all this changed for up to two days after the rats went through a 30-minute period of high stress.
Females do much more poorly after stress, while males do much better in terms of new learning.
When they looked at the animals' brains, the researchers saw a dramatic difference between the males and the females. Brain cells in the males sprouted new nerve connections, while female brain cells actually lost connections. All rights reserved. Email This to a Friend. All rights reserved.