Why women are more talkative

Scientists have identified a new protein that explains why women talk more than men. It has been claimed previously that women speak about 20,000 words a day - some 13,000 more than the average man. A US study published in the Journal of Neuroscience suggests that higher levels of the protein Foxp2 are found in the female brain. US researchers found that those with more Foxp2, known as the ‘language protein’, in their brains were on the whole chattier. Findings suggest among humans it was women, but in rats it was the males. Tests on the parts of the brain known to be involved in vocal calls showed that male rats have up to twice as much Foxp2 protein as the females. During an experiment, researchers then ramped up the protein’s production in the brains of female rats and reduced it in males. This led to the female rats crying out more often and their mothers showing more interest to them. In contrast, the males became less ‘talkative’, showed the report. The researchers at the University of Maryland then tested samples from ten boys and girls aged between three and five. This showed the girls to have 30 percent more of the Foxp2 protein than the boys, in a brain area key to language in humans. Researcher Margaret McCarthy said: “Based on our observations, we found higher levels of Foxp2 in girls and higher levels of Foxp2 in male rats is an indication that Foxp2 protein levels are associated with the more communicative sex.” Studies have shown that the females become more talkative at a young age, learning to speak earlier and more quickly than boys. They produce their first words and sentences earlier, have larger vocabularies and use a greater variety of sentence types than boys of the same age.