Stress responses in men and women have been shown to differ in the way the sexes react and regulate emotional stressors, but it has been unclear whether men and women differ in neural networking in relation to stress activity. This study used an MRI to look at the sex differences in neural responses and networking in males and females. After being exposed to 16 neutral images to elicit a stress response, as well as filling out a stress questionnaire, the subjects’ brains were imaged.
Based on the imaging, they found that both men and women demonstrated an emotional response to the stressor, but in different areas of the brain. Men showed a greater stress response activity in the prefrontal cortex region whereas women responded to stress in the limbic region of the brain.
The investigators found that men have lower stress response activity compared to woman, though not a significant difference. They attribute the lower stress response to the processing in taking place in the prefrontal cortex in men. But, the higher the PFC response, the worse the stress regulation. There was a significant difference between stress regulation in men and women. Thus, women are better at regulating their stress, but are more reactive towards it than men.
Therefore, men and women have different neural networks during stress and sex- specific neural responses that are specialized to each gender (Golfarb, Elizabeth et. al.) What does this tell us about how college students react to stress while the prefrontal cortex is still underdeveloped? Are women still better equipped to regulate emotional stress?
References:
Goldfarb, Elizabeth V, et al. “Sex Differences in Neural Stress Responses and Correlation
with Subjective Stress and Stress Regulation.” Www, www-ncbi-nlm-nih-
gov.aurarialibrary.idm.oclc.org/pmc/articles/PMC6603439/.
I believe that college males would have trouble controlling their emotion regulation, insights, body regulations, etc. since this part of their brain showed a greater stress response activity in the study. Whereas college females, would have emotional problems and problems with thinking that they belong in their society. According to the study, males have worse stress regulation, which indicates that women are better at regulating their emotional stress. This is very interesting because women are seen to be very emotional, but under stress, they respond better then males.
ReplyDeleteSince women and men respond to stress differently, would this mean then that having more gender specific treatments would lead to better treatment of stress-related psychiatric disorders? An article I found on PubMed talked about the difference in stress response between males and females. By understanding this, and the effects of stress more we could figure out better ways to treat certain psychiatric disorders.
ReplyDeleteBangasser, D. A., Eck, S. R., Telenson, A. M., & Salvatore, M. (2018). Sex differences in stress regulation of arousal and cognition. Physiology & behavior, 187, 42–50. doi:10.1016/j.physbeh.2017.09.025