Women drivers better than men? It’s all down to hormones…

Scientists at the University of Bradford have discovered that the hormone oestrogen could be responsible for giving women the advantage when performing certain tasks such as driving.


In a test carried out on volunteers aged between 18 and 35, results showed that a woman’s attention span and her ability to learn rules are far higher than a man’s.

This might explain why girls find it easier than boys to concentrate at school, and why women are more careful drivers.

Amarylis Fox, Dr Kay Marshall and Jo Neill, who performed the tests from the Cambridge Neuropychological Test Automated Battery (CANTAB), found that women have a greater ability to shift their attention from one stimulus to another making it easier for them to perform everyday actions like driving and reading.

It seems likely that oestrogen is responsible these differences in performance as the hormone has previously been shown to have beneficial effects on specific brain regions. Amarylis Fox, of Bradford School of Pharmacy, University of Bradford, said:

“This study demonstrates that tasks requiring mental flexibility favour women over men, an area previously not considered to elicit strong sex differences. Driving could be a good example of how this is applied to everyday life. Our study suggests that oestrogens may positively influence neuronal activity in the frontal lobes, the area of the brain stimulated by tasks of attention and rule learning, which could explain the female advantage when performing these tasks.”

The team’s next work is set to explore further the effect of hormones on cognitive performance:

· Cognitive performance during menstruation

· Cognitive performance during pregnancy

· Hormonal influence on cognition in mental illness

Media Contact

Jo Thurston alfa

More Information:

http://www.endocrinology.org

All latest news from the category: Life Sciences and Chemistry

Articles and reports from the Life Sciences and chemistry area deal with applied and basic research into modern biology, chemistry and human medicine.

Valuable information can be found on a range of life sciences fields including bacteriology, biochemistry, bionics, bioinformatics, biophysics, biotechnology, genetics, geobotany, human biology, marine biology, microbiology, molecular biology, cellular biology, zoology, bioinorganic chemistry, microchemistry and environmental chemistry.

Back to home

Comments (0)

Write a comment

Newest articles

Lighting up the future

New multidisciplinary research from the University of St Andrews could lead to more efficient televisions, computer screens and lighting. Researchers at the Organic Semiconductor Centre in the School of Physics and…

Researchers crack sugarcane’s complex genetic code

Sweet success: Scientists created a highly accurate reference genome for one of the most important modern crops and found a rare example of how genes confer disease resistance in plants….

Evolution of the most powerful ocean current on Earth

The Antarctic Circumpolar Current plays an important part in global overturning circulation, the exchange of heat and CO2 between the ocean and atmosphere, and the stability of Antarctica’s ice sheets….

Partners & Sponsors