And it fits with what a lot of people have suspected, which is that these differences exist. But we can't just jump on the bandwagon. We don't yet know. The males escaped the maze in an average of 2 minutes and 22 seconds, nearly a minute faster than the average of 3 minutes and 16 seconds for the females. As much as some fellows might like to think otherwise, the study's results don't mean that men are any sharper than women.
Females just seem to use their noodles differently in relating to their surroundings.
Although both genders used some of the same parts of their gray matter in the test including the right side of the hippocampus, a seahorse-shaped structure deep in the brain, and there were marked differences in brain activity. Only the men used the left hippocampus. And the women used the right prefrontal cortex, an outer part of the brain, while the men didn't. Researchers said the results raised the possibility that men and women use different cognitive strategies to solve spatial navigation problems. The men's activity in the hippocampus might reflect the geometric approach, whereas the cortex activity in the women could be a display of keeping landmarks in mind.