Every brain begins as a female brain. It only becomes male eight weeks after conception, when excess testosterone shrinks the communications center, reduces the hearing cortex, and makes the part of the brain that processes sex twice as large.

Louann Brizendine, M.D. is a pioneering neuropsychiatrist who brings together the latest findings to show how the unique structure of the female brain determines how women think, what they value, how they communicate, and whom they’ll love. Brizendine reveals the neurological explanations behind why

• A woman remembers fights that a man insists never happened

• A teen girl is so obsessed with her looks and talking on the phone

• Thoughts about sex enter a woman’s brain once every couple of days but enter a man’s brain about once every minute

• A woman knows what people are feeling, while a man can’t spot an emotion unless somebody cries or threatens bodily harm

• A woman over 50 is more likely to initiate divorce than a man

Women will come away from this book knowing that they have a lean, mean communicating machine. Men will develop a serious case of brain envy.

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Men, get ready to develop brain envy.

Advance praise for The Female Brain

“Finally, a satisfying answer to Freud’s question, ‘What does a woman want?’ Louann Brizendine has done a great favor for every man who wants to understand the puzzling women in his life. A breezy and enlightening guide to women—and a must-read for men.”
—Daniel Goleman, author of Social Intelligence

“Sassy, witty, reassuring, and great fun. All women—and the men who love them—should read this book.”
—Christiane Northrup, M.D., author of The Wisdom of Menopause

“An eye-opening account of the biological foundations of human behavior. Destined to become a classic in the field of gender studies.”
—Marilyn Yalom, author of A History of the Breast

“A timely, insightful, readable, and altogether magnificent book.”
—Sarah Blaffer Hrdy, author of Mother Nature: A History of Mothers, Infants and Natural Selection

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Louann Brizendine, M.D., a neuropsychiatrist at the University of California, San Francisco, is the founder of the Women’s and Teen Girls’ Mood and Hormone Clinic. She was previously on faculty at the Harvard Medical School and is a graduate of the Yale University School of Medicine and the University of California, Berkeley, in neurobiology. She has written in professional texts and journals, and she lectures widely to the public and in the media on the female brain. She lives in the San Francisco Bay area with her husband and son.

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