Boys and girls have very different psychological responses to stress and should be treated differently as a result, new research suggests.

Scientists at Stanford University in the US scanned the brains of 59 children aged nine to 17, and found that girls who had been through a traumatic experience tended to have a particularly small insula – a part of the brain that deals with emotions and empathy.

In traumatised boys, however, the insula was larger than usual.

These findings could explain why girls are more likely than boys to develop post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

“Our findings suggest it is possible that boys and girls could exhibit different trauma symptoms and that they might benefit from different approaches to treatment,” says Dr Megan Klabunde, the lead author on the study.

This is how stress affects boys and girls differently