The rat brain atlas has a cerebellum. Credit: Neurolex.
Sex hormones can differentiate male and female brains.
The Brainvolts Lab in the School of Communication at the University of Chicago collaborated with Rutgers University to explain why males and females process sound differently. Sex hormones play a role in the tuning of the auditory systems in female rats.
It is well known that males and females in the animal kingdom process sound different, and that human females hear better. Sex differences in sound processing are not well understood.
The general belief is that males are larger than females and are exposed to more noise, leading to poorer responses in males. Sex hormones are likely to account for why males and females hear different things.
Sex differences in auditory processing vary across estrous cycle according to a study published today.
The lead author of the study said that the sex hormones influence a very basic sensory process. It is another example of how much more we have to learn about how we perceive the world around us.
Sex differences in how the brain processes specific "ingredients" of sound were reported in a previous research. They identified the ingredient that differed between the sexes in adolescence as Harmonics, because it differed between males and females in the development of these ingredients.
The same note on a piano and a clarinet can sound different. For example, "dad" is a speech sound that is bad.
Difficulty distinguishing these differences is a hallmark of language disorders, such as dyslexia, which are more prevalent in males. Kraus said that it may be that estrogen provides some protection for females.
The goal of the study was to determine if the differences in human and rodents' hormones are the same, and if the magnitude of these differences varies with the female rat's estrus cycle.
The brain activity of rats is measured using a system that tracks the brain's automatic electric reaction to sound using sensors on the rodents' heads.
Female FFRs were collected during low and high levels of circulating estrogen, and compared with male rats.
Researchers compared each female's FFR collected during periods of high and low hormonal levels to determine whether the conjugates fluctuate with the estrous cycle. They found that females had higher frequencies when the concentrations were high.
The researchers concluded that the magnitude of the enhancement in females varies with the level of hormones in the body. They said that the ethological function of the ethological code may be important for mate selection and sexual reproduction. Sex can affect virtually any aspect of brain function, and sex hormones can play a role in some of these effects.
The sex differences in auditory processing vary across estrous cycle. The DOI is 10.1038/s41598-021-0
Scientific reports are in the journal.
Sex differences in sound processing are explained by hormones, harmonics.
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