A major male:female difference relates to hippocampal volume, with large and robust performance differences in hippocampal dependent tasks between the sexes across mammalian species, inc humans. In this space you generally see the vole studies, where the monogamous prairie vole has a smaller HC than the hustler meadow vole. The going theory is most (97%) of mammalian species are not monogamous, thus the males needs to know where his ladies are at, which requires more spatial memory capacity ergo larger HC.
Curiously across species hippocampal function is boosted in post-partem females compared to females without pups/kids, suggesting an evolutionary adaption perhaps.
Anyway, this isn't my niche area of neuroscience so the above is mainly quoted from lectures I attended a few years back. But this paper seems to give an adequate overview; https://www.nature.com/articles/s41386-018-0208-4
A major male:female difference relates to hippocampal volume, with large and robust performance differences in hippocampal dependent tasks between the sexes across mammalian species, inc humans. In this space you generally see the vole studies, where the monogamous prairie vole has a smaller HC than the hustler meadow vole. The going theory is most (97%) of mammalian species are not monogamous, thus the males needs to know where his ladies are at, which requires more spatial memory capacity ergo larger HC.
Curiously across species hippocampal function is boosted in post-partem females compared to females without pups/kids, suggesting an evolutionary adaption perhaps.
Anyway, this isn't my niche area of neuroscience so the above is mainly quoted from lectures I attended a few years back. But this paper seems to give an adequate overview; https://www.nature.com/articles/s41386-018-0208-4