Gender: Women's Brains Are Wired for Compassion

In an experiment which studied the brains of people viewing photograhs which evoke compassion ...

No gender differences were observed in the frequency of reported compassionate experiences, the researchers report. However, what was happening in the participants' brain told a different story. As the compassion-evoking photos were viewed, activity was observed in two areas of the brain — the thalamus and the putamen, part of the basal ganglia — in women but not in men.

Also, women showed a greater activation in the cerebellum, a structure governing fine movement control that is also involved in judgment, selective attention and affective experiences, they report. The cerebellum may play a role in the decision to execute helping actions.

For more, see Study of Emotion: Women's Brains Are Wired for Compassion by Tom Jacobs, May 9, 2011 at Miller-McCune.