Science: 10 Things Every Woman Should Know About a Man’s Brain

Ever wondered what's really going on in men's brains?

Are they actually less emotional than women? Is their mind really focused on sex 99.9% of the time? Are the stereotypes of masculinity based on fact or are they entirely fiction?

"Most popular notions about the male brain are based on studies of men ages 18 to 22," LiveScience.com writer Robin Nixon notes, when they are just "undergrads subjecting themselves to experiments for beer money or course credit." But the male mind is far more complex than the impression given by a brief four years of research, and a look at the way it varies over an entire life span quickly contradicts the myth of men as Bud-guzzling sex addicts. For instance...

10. Men are more emotional than you think. Women are traditionally regarded as the more emotional sex, but studies have found that infant boys are more emotionally reactive and expressive than their female counterparts. A study published in the Scandinavian Journal of Psychology in 2008 confirmed that adult men also have slightly stronger emotional reactions than women, though once their emotions move from the subconscious to the conscious mind, men quickly bury them in order to conform to the societal ideal that has declared the expression of feelings "unmanly."

9. Men are also more susceptible to loneliness. Loneliness is harmful to everyone's health, says Dr. Louann Brizendine, author of The Male Brain, but older men appear to be exceptionally vulnerable. When a woman is lonely, she will reach out and attempt to end her isolation; when a man is lonely, it's likely that he will not reach out, which intensifies the loneliness and causes additional problems in the brain's social circuits. The solution to this problem is simple: find a partner. Men in stable relationships "tend to be healthier, live longer and have hormone levels that indicate decreased anxiety."

8. Men do experience empathy. If you think women are the only gender capable of feeling sympathy and compassion, think again. Researchers have found that the empathy system of the male brain does respond when someone is experiencing a problem, though the region of the brain designed to find solutions to predicaments quickly takes over. Consequently, "men tend to be more concerned with fixing a problem than showing solidarity in feeling."

7. Yes, men really are hard-wired to check out women. It's just a fact - testosterone is the hormone of the libido, and "guys have six times the amount surging through their veins as women." Pranjal Mehta, a social psychologist at Columbia University, and her colleagues found that testosterone weakens the impulse-control center of the brain, which means that when men are checking out women, they are responding to a natural unconscious drive that controls them as though they are on auto-pilot.

Stay tuned for the final 6 facts you must know about men's brains, when we take on questions like "Are they really ready for fatherhood?" "Will they ever settle down?" and - perhaps most importantly - "Do they ever grow up?!"