By measuring brain activity using MRI tests for blood pressure, researchers at the UCLA (University of California, Los Angeles, USA) have observed that men and women have opposite responses in the right front of the insular cortex, a part of the brain that is essential to experience emotions, control blood pressure and self –awareness.
The insular cortex has five main parts called gyri, which serve different functions. The researchers found that the blood pressure response in the right frontal gyrus showed an opposite pattern in men and women.
Men showed greater activation of the right side while women showed a lower response. “It is a crucial area in the brain and we didn’t expect to find such large differences between the brains of men and women , “says Paul Macey, senior author of the study, of UCLA. “This region, the right frontal insula is involved in stress and keep the heart rate and high blood pressure. It is possible that women already had turned this region due to psychological stress, so that when they made the physical test study, the brain region could not be activated more.
