Man's memory is worse than the woman's and the male brain part that controls memories is smaller, a study published in JAMA Neurology medical journal said.
"That's right, that's what the data says," said Dr. Clifford Jack of the Mayo Clinic. "We see worse memory and worse brain volumes in men than women from age 40s onward." The researchers said their findings challenge a prevailing view on the aging brain.
Experts have speculated that when older adults start having memory lapses, it may be a sign of early Alzheimer's disease - and likely related to abnormal clumps of a protein called beta-amyloid that accumulate in the brain.
In a study of 1,246 cognitively normal people between the ages of 30 and 95, Jack and fellow researchers found that while memory started to decline for both sexes at age 30, male memory was worse than women overall, especially after age 40.
And in males, the hippocampus, the part of the brain that controls memory, was also smaller than women's, especially after age 60.
"The men's hippocampus starts off a little bit above average in the young people in the study," said neurologist Dr. Charles DeCarli, who reviewed the study before it was published in JAMA Neurology.