is the way you think determined by your sex the idea once considered ridiculous is now slowly gaining credibility in the west according to researchers there is a marked difference in the way men and women use and process information in their brains this suggests that the brain is not genderneutral as was earlier believed but in fact plays an active part in determining how men and women think react and behave how the answer may lie in the formation of the brain the neural pathways between the left and right side of the brain are more pronounced and interlinked in women than men some doctors believe this finding indicates why women are intrinsically able to do certain tasks better than men and vice versa mona lisa schulz a behavioural neuropsychiatrist from the university of boston is one of the doctors who thinks so in an interview to newsweek schulz says interlinking is the reason why women are better able to multitask than men a mans brain is more compartmentalised his emotions are more separate from his rational mind and separate from his intuition this is why men can more easily block out feelings and intuition women traditionally cant do that as their brains are more plastic and stretchable than a mans but womens brains are better able to rewire pathways around an obstructionschulz is the latest in a number of researchers who believe the answer to gender differences lies in the brain in a study sandra witelson professor of neuroscience at mcmaster university in hamilton canada found men and womens brains were different from birth mens brains she found were 10 larger than women but women had 11 more brain cells in the cerebral cortex the cerebral cortex is involved with language this finding witelson believes could explain why women were better than men at picking up speech and language and less likely to be dyslexic ruben gur director of the brain behaviour laboratory at the university of pennsylvania did fmri scans on 37 young men and 24 young womens limbic systems while sleeping the limbic system is an area in the brain involved with emotion and memory gur found that for men there was higher brain activity in the primitive or old region of the limbic system while for women the brain activity took place in the new limbic systemwhat does this mean according to doctors the old region of the limbic system is more responsible for action while the new limbic system is more responsible for symbolic action and according to gur the difference between action and symbolic action can be summarised in this way if a dog bites thats action if he growls thats symbolic actionbut while researchers may slowly be accepting the idea of innate gender differences indian doctors remain sceptical as senior consultant neurosurgeon pradeep pethe points out these experiments need to be done more often and with a much larger number of people before we can accept them as fact agrees psychiatrist