A new study has found that brain blood flow changes during puberty.

Puberty signals adolescent development and brings a lot of changes to the body, including the brain. Researchers found that cerebral blood flow (CBF) levels dropped the same way in both males and females before puberty, but behaved differently once puberty hit. CBF levels increased in females but decreased even further in males, providing insight into why men and women develop differently and have sex-specific inclinations to some psychiatric disorders.

Researchers from the University Of Pennsylvania's School Of Medicine took images of the brains of 922 participants aged 8 to 22. Analysts observed changes related to age in the amount and location of blood flow in males versus females. After comprehensive analyses, they concluded that females had a significantly higher brain blood flow than males by the time puberty ended. The male and female brains showed the highest differences when it came to the parts of the brain related to social behaviors and emotional regulation, like the orbitofrontal cortex.

Researchers believed that the difference in the brain blood flow of males and females could explain why females are better at social recognition, as well as having higher risks of depression and anxiety disorders compared to men. These findings could also demonstrate why men have a higher risk of getting flat affect and schizophrenia compared to women.

"These results show what every parent knows: boys and girls grow differently. This applies to the brain as well. Hopefully, one day such growth charts might allow us to identify abnormal brain development much earlier before it leads to major mental illness," Theodore D. Satterthwaite, lead author of the study and an assistant professor in Pennsylvania, said in a press release.

Full details of the study were published in the May 26 issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Science.