Study: Female Brains Are Smaller Than Male Brains, But Used More Efficiently

SACRAMENTO (CBS Sacramento) - The findings of a new study reveal that, while women do have smaller brains than men, women use the grey matter they do have more efficiently than their male counterparts.

According to The Daily Mail, a team of researchers from both the University of California and abroad in Madrid made the observation while trying to reconcile the discrepancy between male and female brain size and the equality of intelligence between the genders.

The female brain is reportedly 8 percent smaller than the male brain, on average.

Researchers involved in the study specifically observed the different roles the region of the brain known as the hippocampus - which is a center of emotional and memory function in the brain - play in men and women.

In men, a larger hippocampus allegedly results in an increased presence of neurons. The influx then leads to a higher intelligence in men.

In women, however, it appeared that the smaller the hippocampus was, the smarter the woman in question would residually be, leading researchers to believe that the brain matter of women operates in a more efficient manner.

"At this structural level, females might show greater efficiency requiring less neural material for achieving behavioral results on a par with males," researchers were quoted as writing in the published version of their study, which was said to have appeared in the journal Intelligence.

The Daily Mail learned that 59 women and 45 men participated in the study. All of them were between the ages of 18 and 27.