Female Limbic System

Ok so far I have learned that females have a much larger limbic system than men. What does this mean? Well it accounts for the fact that women bond differently than men do, that they tend to be more relational and bond more easily, that they are more in touch with their feelings, and more sensitive and expressive emotionally. It also is clear that women respond differently to the circumstantial and emotional climate of their environment.

The limbic system is the part of our being that translates the experience of our life and emotional environment into reality.
It is responsible for:
-setting the emotional tone of the mind
-filtering external events through internal states (emotional coloring)
-tagging events as internally important
-storing highly charged emotional memories
-modulating motivation
-controlling appetite and sleep cycles
-promoting bonding
-directing processes the sense of smell
-modulating libido

Women are more susceptible to various diseases like depression because of their larger limbic system.

The deep limbic system, along with the deep temporal lobes has also been reported to store highly charged emotional memories, both positive and negative. If you have been traumatized by a dramatic event, such as being in a car accident or watching your house burn down, or if you have been abused by a parent or a spouse, the emotional component of the memory is stored in the deep limbic system of the brain. On the other hand, if you have won the lottery, graduated magna cum laude, or watched your child's birth, those emotional memories are stored here as well. The total experience of our emotional memories is responsible, in part, for the emotional tone of our mind. The more stable, positive experiences we have the more positive we are likely to feel. The more trauma in our lives the more emotionally set we become in a negative way. These emotional memories are intimately involved in the emotional tagging that occurs.

The deep limbic system, especially the hypothalamus at the base of the brain, is responsible for translating our emotional state into physical feelings of relaxation or tension. The front half of the hypothalamus sends calming signals to the body through the parasympathetic nervous system. The back half of the hypothalamus sends stimulating or fear signals to the body through the sympathetic nervous system. The back half of the hypothalamus, when stimulated, is responsible for the fight or flight response, a primitive state that gets us ready to fight or flee when we are threatened or scared. This "hard-wired response" happens immediately upon activation, such as seeing or experiencing an emotional or physical threat. In this response the heart beats faster, breathing rate and blood pressure increases, the hands and feet become cooler to shunt blood from the extremities to the big muscles (to fight or run away) and the pupils dilate (to see better). This "deep limbic" translation of emotion is powerful and immediate. It happens with overt physical threats and also with more covert emotional threats. This part of the brain is intimately connected with the prefrontal cortex and seems to acts as a switching station between running on emotion (the deep limbic system) and rational thought and problem solving with our cortex. When the limbic system is turned on - emotions tend to take over. When it is cooled down, more activation is possible in the cortex. Current research on depression indicates increased deep limbic system activity and shut down in the prefrontal cortex, especially on the left side.
http://www.brainplace.com/bp/brainsystem/limbic.asp

Ok, having quoted all that...there are a host of diseases that are predominantly women's diseases. Fibromyalgia, Multiple Chemical Sensitivity, Chronic Fatigue, Hypothyroidism, Multiple Sclerosis, Various Endorine diseases, etc. A very high percentage of individuals with these diseases are women! Why? Could it be attributed to the fact that the female limbic system is different? I believe there is a lot to indicate that it is but perhaps that is simply the physiological explanation. Let's first explore more differences between the sexes.

Some facts from this site:
http://www.womenshealthresearch.org/hs/home.htm

Autoimmune disease:

Women are 2.7 times more likely than men to acquire an autoimmune disease.
The most striking sex differences are observed in Sjogren’s syndrome, lupus, autoimmune thyroid disease (Hashimoto’s thyroiditis and well as Graves’ disease), and scleroderma, which represent a spectrum of diseases in which the patient population is greater than 80 percent women.

In rheumatoid arthritis (RA), multiple sclerosis (MS), and myasthenia gravis the sex distribution is 60-75 percent women.

Size and matter:

Women have smaller brains than men, with women having more gray matter and men having more white matter. This finding may help explain why women are typically better than men at verbal tasks, while men are typically better than women at spatial tasks, as well as why the sexes perform equally well on intelligence tests in spite of males having larger brains.

Depression:

Both depression and panic disorder rates, which are also two-fold higher in women than men, may be tied to childhood experiences of abuse. Although boys are more likely to be physically abused than girls, girls are sexually abused more often and tend to have more negative psychological reactions to all forms of abuse.

Compared to men, women with depression tend to report more frequent bodily symptoms, such as fatigue, and appetite and sleep disturbances.

Stress Disorders

The risk for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) following traumatic experiences is 2-fold higher in women than men and is associated with significantly reduced quality of life in both men and women with markedly worse quality of well-being outcomes in women regardless of prolonged PTSD status. Women are also more likely than men to have been previously assaulted, or to have sustained injury by a relative or someone known to them, but less likely to have used substances at the time of the assault or to require emergency surgery.

Anxiety disorders are chronic illnesses that occur more often in women than men with the relapse rates for uncomplicated panic 3-fold higher in women.

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Ever notice how an emotional upset will keep a women preoccupied much longer than a man? This all makes me wonder if this is what is being referred to in 1 Peter 3 when it refers to the woman as the weaker vessel. Weaker vessel means just what it says...women have a weaker physical body. There are obvious strength differences in general between the sexes but this is more than that. We know it has nothing to do with IQ since men and women score the same. In fact it is clear from scripture that equality is not the issue. Women were created equal counterparts (helpmates) but designed differently then men for very good reasons.

In 1 Peter 3:7 there is instruction to a man to "live with his wife according to knowledge (understanding), giving honor to his wife, as the weaker vessel..." and also in Eph. 5 instruction to the husband to care for, and protect his wife in the same way that Christ cares for and protects his bride (Saviour).

Scripture speaks of women being "keepers at home" and if you look up the word in Greek it means "manager of the household". That is not in contradiction to the husband being the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church. It is simply referring to two completely different roles that complement each other rather than contradict each other.

In my mind these significant physiological differences point very clearly to God's order for things and the reason he has designated specific roles to men and women as well as responsibilities and guidelines for how we are to treat each other. Perhaps man's attempts to change all of that through a warped understanding of gender equality is part of what has contributed to the rise in these female dominated diseases. Let's face it folks men are not women and women are not men. God never intended equality to mean "the same" but rather that the one would complete the other. That the two would come together to make one whole..."and the two shall be as one"!!

Henry Wright has some things to say about these things in his book "The More Excellent Way". I will share some of that soon! He delves into the spiritual reasons why women are more susceptible to disease. Now if you are someone who is thinking that I might be about to say women should stay at home and babysit all day and men should go out to work...just go read Proverbs 31. That'll cure ya.