SHOW: CANADA AM (CTV) 8:39:25 ET

November 29, 2006 Wednesday

LENGTH: 666 words

HEADLINE: In utero brain alteration makes women more chatty than men

ANCHORS: BEVERLY THOMSON

GUESTS: DR. LOUANN BRIZENDINE, AUTHOR, "THE FEMALE BRAIN"

BODY:


THOMSON: Men and women alike think ladies have the gift of gab. And that theory is confirmed in Dr. Louann Brizendine's book, "The Female Brain". It turns out, women say about 20,000 words a day, while men only utter 7,000. To talk a little bit more about this, I am joined by Dr. Brizendine.

Good morning.

BRIZENDINE: Good morning, Beverly. How are you?

THOMSON: I'm well, thank you.

Tell me what made you decide to actually carry out this research. It's certainly something anecdotally that most people would say, oh yeah, that sounds right, women do talk a lot more than men. But what made you decide to actually go and research it and come up with the findings?

BRIZENDINE: I think, Beverly, one thing that's interesting to know, that's fascinating about the brain, is that when we are in utero the fetal brain is all female in both males and females, up until eight weeks old. And then the tiny testicles in the male fetus start pumping out testosterone. It goes up into the male brain, changes the female-type circuits of the brain, and then basically increases the size of the cells in the male brain for things like sexual pursuit and other male-brain circuits. And by the time we're all born we are born with a male-type brain or a female-type brain.

Lots of our behaviours that are different then end up coming from something that we're given at birth in terms of our brain circuits.

THOMSON: So, what is in the brain that, because I know in part of your research and your findings you say that women actually get a buzz, if you will, off talking a lot.

BRIZENDINE: Yes, it's interesting. Females like to do lots of what is called overlapping talk and will get together with each other. And in the social setting, in the home and places where women feel comfortable in a social setting with their friends, that is the context in which women tend to speak a lot more -- or speaking on the phone with their mothers or their girlfriends and lots of overlapping speech.

However, you've got to remember that if you are out on a date with a guy for the first time and he's trying to impress you, what will happen is that the guy will be talking, talking, talking and the girl may not get even a single word in edgewise. So, it's the context that counts. Sometimes then men will overtalk you completely.

THOMSON: Well, and certainly, as you mentioned, there's exceptions to every case. I mean, you might just get a chatty man.

BRIZENDINE: I think men in the media in particular, they've chosen that field because they tend to be more chatty than the average guy.

THOMSON: Did you hear that, Seamus? [laughter] Sorry.

Tell me how you did the research, though. Because when you think about it, 20,000 words? Did you sit there and record women over a period of time?

BRIZENDINE: Actually all of the studies -- I reviewed 1,008 studies for my book, "The Female Brain", that looks at all kinds of aspects of how we behave as females and think as females differently than the male.

And you've got to remember that only about one-percent differences turn up. Because the male and female brain are more alike than they are different. So, the interesting part of that is that for millions of years we have evolved in a slightly different niche. The female niche has been more being pregnant, having babies, raising what we call nonverbal infants. So, the female brain tends to be better at certain things like picking up nonverbal cues and social cues, emotional cues.

And the female brain actually remembers the details of emotional events much more than a guy. For example, I don't know about you but many, many women will describe an event where they know some big argument that they had with their husband 10 years ago he doesn't remember at all. And she remembers every single detail. [laughter]

THOMSON: Oh boy. And that's a whole other study I think, Doctor.

BRIZENDINE: Absolutely.

THOMSON: Thank you very much for your time. I'm not sure Seamus heard us because I think he was talking behind me back there. [laughter]

LOAD-DATE: November 29, 2006