Ask any woman who’s experienced natural birth or any man who’s experienced a migraine and they’ll tell you – their pain tolerance is higher than most.

Researchers at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB), conducted a study using both male and female mice and have now determined that pain responses are actually different in males and females – with each sex using different biological systems to process pain, each altered by gender-based hormones.

According to recent CDC health statistics, “women are more likely to experience several kinds of pain than men, especially in the head and back” with women also having a more likely chance at experiencing migraines and headaches.

“Realizing that females likely process pain differently than males will allow us to focus on creating alternate pain therapies for each sex,” said researcher Robert Sorge, an assistant professor in the Department of Psychology in UAB’s College of Arts and Sciences, “This study has helped us uncover that need.”

Other studies have shown that the immune system may play a larger role in pain management, working in tandem with the nervous system.

“Given that women greatly outnumber men as sufferers of chronic pain, one might wonder why it is that this sex difference was not noted until now,” Sorge said. “The reason is that, as in most pain research, the overwhelming majority of the studies of microglia and pain were performed only on male rats and mice.”