CHICAGO, Nov. 30 (UPI) -- Using brain scans, researchers in Poland found men and women respond differently to positive and negative stimuli.
Dr. Andrzej Urbanik of Jagiellonian University Hospital in Krakow, Poland, and colleagues recruited 40 right-handed volunteers -- 21 men and 19 women -- between the ages of 18-36. The volunteers underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging while viewing pictures from a widely used, standardized testing system comprised of several thousand slides of various objects and images from ordinary life designed to evoke defined emotional states.
For the first run, only negative pictures were shown. For the second run, only positive pictures were shown, Urbanik said.
While viewing the negative images, women showed decidedly stronger and more extensive activation in the left thalamus, which relays sensory information to and from the cerebral cortex, including the pain and pleasure centers, Urbanik said.
Men exhibited more activation in the left insula, which gauges the physiological state of the entire body and then generates subjective feelings that can bring about actions. Information from the insula is relayed to other brain structures involved in decision making.
"In men, the negative images on the slides were more potent in driving their autonomic system," Urbanik said in a statement. "This might signal that when confronted with dangerous situations, men are more likely than women to take action.
The findings were presented at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America in Chicago.
