Scientists have developed a model that can tell the difference between scans of male and female brains with over 90 per cent accuracy and found that the key variations are found in the default mode network, striatum and limbic network – areas of the organ responsible for daydreaming, planning for the future and decision making.

Boffins at Stanford Medicine say the findings support the idea that gender shapes the brain and hope that the results shed light on neurological conditions that affect men and women in different ways.

Vinod Menon, professor of psychiatry and behavioural sciences at Stanford and senior author of the research, said: "A key motivation for this study is that sex plays a crucial role in human brain development, in ageing, and in the manifestation of psychiatric and neurological disorders.

"Identifying consistent and replicable sex differences in the healthy adult brain is a critical step toward a deeper understanding of sex-specific vulnerabilities in psychiatric and neurological disorders."

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