Evidence indicates that men perform better than women at spatial navigation tasks, such as finding their way in an unfamiliar environment. On page 404, Riepe and colleagues now establish a neural correlate for this gender difference, by showing that men and women show different patterns of brain activation during navigation. The authors asked subjects to navigate their way out of a virtual reality maze displayed on a computer while their brain activity was monitored by fMRI. As anticipated from previous work, they found that men are faster than women at finding their way out of the maze. However, although some brain areas were equally activated in men and women, there were several differences. Men showed activation of the left hippocampal region (which was previously shown to be involved in spatial tasks) whereas women showed activation of the parietal and right prefrontal cortices. The significance of this differential activation is less clear, but the results raise the possibility that men and women may be using different cognitive strategies to solve the navigation task. Now, could this have anything to do with the notorious male reluctance to ask for directions?