The dichotomy of sexes, questioned from a brain perspective
Main Article Content
Abstract
In this work, I will seek to show the biases and methodological deficiencies of neuroscientific studies that claim the existence of sexual brain dimorphism. In addition to showing the falsehood of such claim, I will characterize the brain as an estrategic organ which will allow us to reinterpret the concepts of sex and gender as well as the relation between them. Such reinterpretation will require to break with the current dichotomic conception of bodies, whose prescriptive and normative end up being an obstacle to biomedical research and clinical practice.
Downloads
Article Details
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/deed.es).
References
Arnold, Arthur (2009). The organizational-activational hypothesis as the foundation for a unified theory of sexual differentiation of all mammalian tissues. Horm behav., 55(5), 570–578. doi: 10.1016/j.yhbeh.2009.03.011
Azim, Eliman; Mobbs, Dean; Jo, Booil; Menon, Vinod & Reiss, Allan (2005). Sex differences in brain activation elicited by humor. PNAS, 102(45), 16496–16501. doi: 10.1073/pnas.0408456102
Cahill, Larry & Aswad, Dana (2015). Sex Influences on the brain: an issue who’s time has come. Neuron, 88(6), 1084-5. Doi: 10.1016/j.neuron.2015.11.021
Cela-Conde, Camilo J.; Ayalab, Francisco J.; Munar, Enric; Maestú, Fernando; Nadal, Marcos & Capo, Miguel A. (2009). Sex-related similarities and differences in the neural correlates of beauty. PNAS, 106(10), 3847–3852. doi: 10.1073/pnas.0900304106.
Chen, Chenyi; Decety, Jean; Huang, Pin-Chia; Chen, Chin-Yau & Cheng, Yawei (2016). Testosterone administration in females modulates moral judgment and patterns of brain activation and functional connectivity. Human Brain Mapping, 37(10), 3417-3430. doi: 10.1002/hbm.23249
De Vries, Geert & Forger, Nancy (2015). Sex differences in the brain: a whole-body perspective. Biology of sex differences 6, 1-15. doi: 10.1186/s13293-015-0032-z
De Vries, Geert & Södersten, Per (2009). Sex differences in the brain: the relation between structure and function. Hormones and behavior, 55(5), 589–596. doi: 10.1016/j.yhbeh.2009.03.012
Eliot, Lise (2011). The trouble with sex differences. Neuro, 72, 895-898. doi: 10.1016/j.neuron.2011.12.001
Español, Silvia (2004). Cómo hacer cosas sin palabras: gesto y ficción en la infancia temprana. Madrid: Machado Libros
Franconi, Flavia & Campesi, Ilaria (2014). Sex and gender influences on pharmacological response: an overview Expert rev. clin. pharmacol. 7(4), 469–485.
García-Falgueras, Alicia & Swaab, Dick (2010). Sexual hormones and the brain: an essential alliance for sexual identity and sexual orientation. Endocrine development, 17, 22-35. doi: 10.1159/000262525
Haraway, Donna (1995). Ciencia, ciborgs y mujeres, la reinvención de la naturaleza. Madrid: Ediciones Cátedra.
Hines, Melissa; Spencer, Debra; Kung, Karson; Browne, Wendy; Constantinescu, Mihaela & Noorderhaven, Rebecca (2016). The early postnatal period, mini-puberty, provides a window on the role of testosterone in human neurobehavioral development. Current opinion in neurobiology, 38, 69-73. doi: 10.1016/j.conb.2016.02.008
Hines, Melissa; Constantinescu, Mihaela & Spencer, Debra (2015). Early androgen exposure and human gender development. Biology of sex differences, 6. doi: 10.1186/s13293-015-0022-1 1-10
Hyde, Janet (2016). Sex and cognition: gender and cognitive functions. Current opinion in neurobiology, 38, 53-56. doi: 10.1016/j.conb.2016.02.007
Ingalhalikar, Madhura et al. (2014). Sex differences in the structural connectome of the human brain. PNAS, 111(2), 823–828. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1316909110
Joel, Dapnha; Hänggic, Jürgen & Pool, Jared. (2016). Reply to Glezerman: why differences between brains of females and brains of males do not “add up” to create two types of brains. PNAS, 113(14), doi: 10.1073/pnas.1600791113
Joel, Dapnha & Fausto-Sterling, Anne (2016). Beyond sex differences: new approaches for thinking about variation in brain structure and function. Philosophical transactions of The Royal Society of London. Series B. Biological Science, 371(1688), 1-9 doi: 10.1098/rstb.2015.0451
Joel, Dapnha & McCarthy, Margaret (2016). Incorporating sex as a biological variable in neuropsychiatric research: where are we now and where should we be? Neuropsychopharmacology, 42(2), 379-385. doi: 10.1038/npp.2016.79.
Joel, Dapnha; Persico, Ariel; Hänggid, Jürgen, Poole, Jared & Bermanb, Zohar (2016). Reply to Del Giudice et al.,
Chekroud et al., and Rosenblatt: Do brains of females and males belong to two distinct populations? PNAS, 113(14), E1969–E1970. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1600792113
Joel, Dapnha et al. (2015). Sex beyond the genitalia: The human brain mosaic. PNAS, 112(50), 15468–15473. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1509654112
Joel, Dapnha (2012). Genetic-gonadal-genitals sex (3G-sex) and the misconception of brain and gender, or, why 3G-males and 3G-females have intersex brain and intersex gender. Biology of Sex Differences, 3, (27), 1-6 doi: 10.1186/2042-6410-3-27
Joel, Dapnha (2011). Male or female? Brains are intersex. Frontiers in integrative neuroscience, 5, 1-5 doi: 10.3389/fnint.2011.00057
Klein, Sabra et al. (2015). Opinion: Sex inclusion in basic research drives discovery. PNAS, 112 (17), 5257–5258. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1502843112
Kung, Karson; Browne, Wendy; Constantinescu, Mihaela; Noorderhaven, Rebecca,& Hines, Melissa (2016). Early postnatal testosterone predicts sex-related difference in early expressive vocabulary. Psychoneuroendocrinology, 68, 111-116. doi: 10.1016/j.psyneuen.2016.03.001
LeVay, Simon (2011). Editorial: From mice to men: Biological factors in the development of sexuality. Frontiers in neuroendocrinology, 32, 110-113. doi:10.1016/j.yfrne.2011.02.002
Lindberg, Sara; Hyde, Janet; Petersen, Jennifer & Lin, Marcia (2010). New trends in gender and mathematics performance: a metanalysis. Psychol bulletin, 136(6), 1123–1135. doi: 10.1037/a0021276
Maffía, Diana (2008). Contra las dicotomías: feminismo y epistemología crítica. Recuperado de http://dianamaffia.com.ar/archivos/Contra-las-dicotom%C3%ADas.-Feminismo-y-epistemolog%C3%ADa-cr%C3%ADtica.pdf
Maney, Donna (2016). Perils and pitfalls of reporting sex difference. Trans. R. Soc.: 20150119. pp 1-11 http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2015.0119
McCarthy, Margaret & Konkle, Anne (2005). When is a sex difference not a sex difference? Frontiers in Neuroendocrinology, 26, 85-102. doi: 10.1016/j.yfrne.2005.06.001
Pelletier, Roxanne et al. (2016). Sex versus gender-related characteristics: which predicts outcome after acute coronary syndrome in the young? Journal of the American College of Cardiology, 67 (2), 127-35. doi: 10.1016/j.jacc.2015.10.067
Rubin, Gale (1986). El tráfico de mujeres: Notas sobre la “economía política” del sexo. Revista nueva antropología, 8(030), 95-145.
Schiebinger, Londa (2016). Gender matters in biological research and medical practice. Journal of the American College of Cardiology, 67(2), 136-137. doi: 10.1016/j.jacc.2015.11.029
Smith, Elke; Junger, Jessica; Derntl, Birgit & Habel, Ute (2015). The transsexual brain - a review ofï¬ndings on the neural basis of transsexualism. Neuroscience and biobehavioural Reviews, 59, 251-266. doi: 10.1016/j.neubiorev.2015.09.008
Valls-Llobet, Carmen (2016 [2009]). Mujeres, salud y poder. Madrid: Ediciones Cátedra.
Wallen, Kim (2009). The Organizational Hypothesis: Reflections on the 50th anniversary of the publication of Phoenix, Goy, Gerall, and Young (1959). Hormones and behavior, 55, 561-565. doi: 10.1016/j.yhbeh.2009.03.009
Wu, Yan et al. (2016). Sex-specific neural circuits of emotion regulation in the centromedial amygdala.Scientific reports, 6, 23112. pp 1-10 doi: 10.1038/srep23112
Zhu, Xun; Kelly, Tomhas; Curry, Thomas; Lal, Chitra & Joseph, Jane (2015). Altered functional brain asymmetry for mental rotation: effect of estradiol changes across the menstrual cycle.Neuroreport, 26 (14), 814–819. doi:10.1097/WNR.0000000000000429