in a study published in 2006, neuroscientist tania singer showed that empathy-related neural responses are significantly lower in males when observing an "unfair" person experiencing pain. another 2014 study by researchers chiyoko kobayashi frank, simon baron-cohen and barbara l. ganzel found that on average women use networks in the brain associated with both cognitive empathy ( higher activity in mpfc) and emotional empathy (non-activity in the vmpfc) more than men, in which they inferred can somewhat explain why women have better performance in theory of mind or cognitive empathy skills.