Of the sexes and their brains - UQAM | Bibliotheques



Table of contents

Preface (pp. 11-16)

Chapter 1 Development of maleness and femaleness (pp. 17-41)

The evolution of sex differences. Femaleness is X and maleness is Y. The basic human prototype is, in one respect, female. Hermaphroditism as a starting state for humans. David and Goliath or Y versus X. Biological maturation throws a monkey wrench into our concepts of sex differences. Senescence throws a second monkey wrench into our concepts of sex differences. The multiplier effect.

Chapter 2 Differences between male and female brains (pp. 42-91)

Extent and limits of sexual dimorphism of the brain. Steroid hormones are active in the developing and adult brain. Gender differences in brain neurotransmitters. Gender differences in basic brain chemistry. Gender differences in violence are a function of brain neurotransmitters. Gender differences in sexuality are, among other things, a function of hormones and brain neurotransmitters. Do gender differences in cognition depend on gender differences in neurotransmitters ? Brain serotonin metabolism seems to be particularly gender-specific. Is the left hemisphere more developed in human females than males ? Do boy’s and girl’s cerebral hemispheres develop at different rates ? Men's and women's brains, though quite similar in gross anatomy, are different in specific areas. What is the significance of the male preponderance of left handedness ?

Chapter 3 Sex differences in behavior and cognitive abilities (pp. 92-140)

The psychology of sex differences has been the subject of much popularization. Sex differences in infant psychomotor function. Sex differences in turning behavior. Sex differences having to do with aggressiveness and fearfulness. Sex differences in play behavior. Do girls and women have a general superiority in verbal abilities ? Are boys and men superior in visuospatial skills ? Experimental neuropsychology approaches to gender differences in cerebral dominance. Broverman’s model of cognitive sex differences. Metabolic brain imaging studies. Lesion studies. There are more mentally deficient men than women. Geniuses are more frequently male. Sex differences having to do with sexual behavior. Sex differences in parental nurturance. Are there gender differences in ability to discriminate or express emotion ? Hormonal determinants of personality.

Chapter 4 Neurological and neuropsychiatric differences between the sexes (pp. 141-168)

Stress on the brain and developmental delay. Brain damage in early development. Juvenile dystonia and tardive dyskinesia. Cluster versus migraine headache: a gender split. Are there sex differences in corpus callosum pathology ? The immunoreactive theory of selective male affliction.

Why gender differences in neuropsychiatry are theoretically important. There is no direct chromosomal explanation of sex differences in neuropsychiatry. The earlier the onset, the more boys are at risk. Externalizing disorders affect boys. Internalizing disorders affect mostly females. Female-prevalent disorders are stress related. Is the right hemisphere more fragile in females and the left hemisphere more fragile in males ? Do human females have a fragile serotonin network and human males a fragile dopamine/noradrenalin network ? Why do idiot-savants belong disproportionately to the male sex ? Why are male and female alcoholism so different ?

Chapter 5 Sex differences in life expectancy (pp. 169-191)

Cultural determinants of the gender gap in life expectancy. Biological determinants of the gender gap in life expectancy. Birth ratios as a function of gender. The first apocalypse: the human male has lower life expectancy before birth. The second apocalypse: the human male survivor has lower life expectancy during childhood. The third apocalypse: the human male survivor has lower life expectancy during adolescence. The fourth apocalypse: the human male survivor has lower life expectancy during senescence. Gender differences in risk for brain lesions.

Chapter 6 Neuropsychology of sexual orientation and sexual identity (pp. 192-222)

Sexual genotypic and phenotypic configurations. Homosexuality and transsexualism as a function of chromosomal aberrations. Endocrinological factors in homosexuality. Sexual identity and sexual orientation are more fragile in the male sex. The inheritance of homosexuality. Neuropsychological study of homosexuals. Direct studies of homosexual brains. Are male and female homosexuality different conditions ? What is transsexualism ? Is transsexualism hereditary ? The neuropsychology of transsexualism. Studies of transsexual brains. What is the relation between inversion of sexual orientation and inversion of sexual identity ? Implications for parents of androgynous, hermaphroditic or transsexual children.

Chapter 7 Neuroendocrinology, neuroimmunology and gender (pp. 223-237)

The female sex has a more potent immune system. The immune system and the development of the brain. What are auto immune diseases ? Women are more at risk for auto immune disease. Auto immune diseases that attack the brain.

Chapter 8 Effects of too many or too few sex chromosomes and diseases and abnormal conditions due to the X chromosome (pp. 238-249)

Congenital chromosomal aberrations. Sex differences in chromosomal disorders. Turner’s syndrome, Klinefelter’s syndrome and cognition. Sex differences in hereditary disorders. X-linked disorders affecting only girls. X-linked disorders affecting only boys. Genomic imprinting: a revolution in conceptualisation of sex differences

Chapter 9. Neuropsychology of puberty, the menstrual cycle, parturition and menopause (pp. 250-271)

Hormonal cycling in women provides a window of opportunity for psychoendocrinology. Female cycling hormones and their functions. Effects of the menstrual cycle on emotions and abilities. What are sex hormones ? From cycling hormones to cycling brains to cycling behavior. From cycling brain pathology to theoretical models of psychoneuroendocrinology. Does early or late puberty determine neuropsychological profiles ? Is there a neuropsychology of hysterectomy, ovariectomy or menopause ? Is there a neuropsychology of pregnancy ? Why do the menstrual cycles of cohabitating women synchronize ?

Chapter 10 Sex-linked psychopathology: Anorexia nervosa and psychopathy as prototypes (pp. 272-285)

Boys will be boys and girls will be girls. Anorexia nervosa as a pathological prototype of femininity. Psychopathy as a pathological prototype of masculinity.

Chapter 11 Gender differences in cerebral laterality: toward a synthesis (pp. 286-290)

Why review cerebral laterality ? There are gender-specific sex steroid receptor asymmetries in the brain. There exists at least one gender-specific neurotransmitter asymmetry in the human brain. There are gender-specific functional auditory and visual cognitivo-perceptual asymmetries. There are gender-specific macroanatomical hemispheric asymmetries. There are gender-specific motor asymmetries. There are gender-specific hemispherically specialized cognitive asymmetries. Neuropsychiatric diseases are hemispherically lateralized in a gender-specific manner.

Chapter 12 Conclusion (pp. 293-297)

Bibliography (pp. 298-341)

List of figures

Figure 1. The human chromosomes

Figure 2. A magnetic resonance brain image and an MRI spectroscopic tracing

Figure 3. A lateral view of the left hemisphere of the human brain

Figure 4. Young dwarf chimpanzees (Bonobos) performing ventro-ventral copulation

Figure 5. A median view of the human right brain hemisphere

Figure 6. Serotonin’s involvement in normal behavior and in female-prevalent psychopathology

Figure 7. A human ovum solicited by thousands of spermatozoa

Figure 8. The external genitalia at the 9th week of gestation

Figure 9. The appearance of a person with the eunuchnoid form of Klinefelter’s syndrome

Figure 10. The appearance of a person with Turner’s syndrome

Figure 11. The variation of sex hormone concentrations in blood as a function of the menstrual cycle

Figure 12. Body image distortion in restricting anorexics

Figure 13. Iconography of psychopathic culture

List of vignettes

1. The dwarf chimpanzee (bonobos)

2. A case of hysterical aphonia

3. A case of alexithymia and callosal agenesis

4. A case with Tourette’s disease

5. A case with attention deficit disorder and hyperactivity (ADHD)

6. A case of Kleine-Levin syndrome

7. A case of depression

8. A case of elective mutism

9. A case of prodigeal musical ability in a pervasively impaired child

10. A case of attempted suicide in an adolescent boy

11. A case with Klinefelter’s syndrome

12. A case of Turner’s syndrome

13. A case of incomplete androgen insensitivity syndrome

14. A case of congenital virilizing adrenal syndrome (CVAS)

15. A case of transsexualism

16. A case with systemic lupus erythematosis (SLE)

17. A case of fragile-X syndrome

18. A case with Rett’s syndrome

19. A case of anorexia nervosa

20. A case of necrophyliac psychopathy

List of tables

Table 1 Synopsis of brain differences between the sexes

Table 2 Summary of differences between hypertonic and hypotonic babies

Table 3 Pediatric neuropsychological syndromes believed to comprise callosal dysfunction and for which the male child is at greater risk and/or is more severely affected

Table 4 Examples of neuropsychiatric disorders whose early onset forms are more severe than the adult onset forms

Table 5 Externalizing disorders

Table 6 Male prevalent early onset syndromes comprising neurogenic aggressiveness

Table 7 Internalizing disorders

Table 8 Prevalence of auto immune disorders in women relative to men

Table 9 Findings of significant menstrual modulations of putatively serotonin-dependent behaviors

Table 10 Summary of gender-typical traits exacerbated in the anorexia nervosa syndrome

Table 11 Summary of gender-typical traits exacerbated in the psychopathy syndrome

Student’s tribunes

1. Gender is also in the blood

2. Basic brain chemistry varies in specific brain areas as a function of gender

3. Mania and agitation versus depression and lethargy result from right and left lesions respectively

4. Developmental hyperactivity and dyslexia result from right and left hemisphere dysfunctions respectively

5. Men and boys are more at risk for most kinds of brain damage

6. Men’s and women’s immune systems are very different

7. Mood and the menstrual cycle, is the variation objective or subjective ?

8. Does interhemispheric physiology vary as a function of the menstrual cycle ?

9. Psychopathy as an orbitofrontal syndrome

Of the sexes and their brains

(The neuropsychology of gender differences)

by Claude M.J. Braun, PhD

Synopsis

This book, Of the sexes and their brains: The neuropsychology of gender differences, is an essay in scientific popularization. Its’ subject matter covers several topics pertaining to differences between men's and women's brains and behavior. We are accustomed to thinking that sex differences are culturally determined and thus conditioned by experiences of life after birth. However, stringent and extensive scientific analysis of the causes of sex differences in behavior compel us to recognize and understand that our genetic legacy and our hormonal and brain development before birth are extremely important causes of sex differences in behavior. Though intellectual and other mental abilities are equivalent, on the whole, in adult men and women, each sex presents some relative advantages and disadvantages. New medical research techniques are now helping us observe fine-grained differences in men's and women’s brains, and many such differences have been found. These differences are beginning to explain why men and women are at differing risk for various psychiatric disturbances as well as certain disorders of immune function. Sexual identity, sexual orientation, and sexual behavior are very different in men and women. A wide ranging and detailed neurobiological account of these differences is provided in this book. Sex hormones continue to have important and complex effects on sex differences in brain function and non-reproductive behavior and mental life right up until death. Such effects are observed, for example, in relation to the arrival of puberty, of childbearing, and of menopause. One of the fascinating differences between men and women is that the two sides of their brains are anatomically and physiologically organized and connected in a sex-specific manner. This may in fact be a major key to understanding the hidden causes of sex differences in behavior.

Of the sexes and their brains

(The neuropsychology of gender differences)

by Claude M.J. Braun, PhD

Preface

The main purpose of this book is to provide a generally accessible account of what science has to say about the biological causes of sex differences in mental life, behavior and disease. What does this book contribute that’s new ? It covers, I think, wider territory than previously published books. The biopsychology of sex differences has remained, until now, somewhat fragmented into compartments -such as “animal or human endocrinology”, “immunology”, “cognitive neuropsychology”, “sexology”, “psychiatry”, “developmental neurobiology”, etc. However, I attempt to show in the present book that the sex differences elaborated upon within each of these domains are intricately related to each other. Such a venture is hazardous. The brilliant Boston neurologist Norman Geschwind made an attempt to understand the biopsychology of sex differences from a widely interdisciplinary perspective. Unfortunately, his attempt failed rather miserably. So the main ambition of this book is to attempt to contribute a wider, deeper and truer synthesis of what is known today of biopsychological aspects of sex differences. As I gave this pursuit hundreds of hours of thought (based on readings of scientific findings), it became obvious to me that there have been numerous and coherent evolutionary pressures, natural selections, that have fixed, over many hundreds of thousands of years, the biological underpinnings of sex differences in behavior in the human species. It is thus evolutionary theorizing which provides the coherence and wide scope of this book.

Of course, the scientific approach to complex issues of human experience and behavior presents numerous pitfalls. One that I find very important, and which I desperately wish to avoid, I call "error of focus". I believe analysts of human behavior are always at risk for having too narrow an outlook. This problem is particularly acute and consequential when the scientific experts address themselves to the media and the general public. With regard to the study of sex differences, such narrowness can go two ways: biological reductionism or sociocultural transcendentalism. Too much emphasis on evolutionary underpinnings, on hereditary causation, on brain mechanisms, leads to an animalistic simplification of human behavior. Biological reductionism denigrates the power of culture, seeking to reduce complex phenomena to their simplest expression. On the other hand, too much emphasis on culture, learning, attitudes and social roles leads to another type of bias called mentalism. It puts humanity on a pedestal, cuts it off from natural science, deprives it of its prehistory and of its material existence.

Another pitfall in the study of human behavior, which I have tried hard to step over without tripping into, is ideological bias. The specific area of investigation of sex differences is particularly sensitive to political intrigue, and interestingly, to self-delusion. Biological reductionism has, on occasion, aligned itself with right wing conservatism at the hands of men in power in the scientific establishment. This has certainly been the case in the investigation of racial differences in intelligence. I do believe though that the neuropsychology of sex differences is a special, exceptional, case. Some people are worried that the political agenda of neuropsychological study of sex differences might consist of exaggeration of sex differences, validation of antiquated sex roles, and in the worst cases, of putting women down (or at least of scoffing at social engineering and political-legislative optimism). However, I think this misgiving is usually expressed by people who do not know the field. In fact, a large (probably the larger) proportion of the research in the domain of the neuropsychology of sex differences has been carried out by women (Bem, Benbow, DeLacoste, Diamond, Hampson, Goldman-Rakic, Gur, Kimura, Levy, Maccoby, McGlone, Reinisch, Rovet, Waber, Weekes, Witelson and many others) none of whom have given us reason to suspect a dark reactionary motive. The opposite ideological orientation, which I term the “sociocultural bias”, tends to be relatively more prevalent among radical feminists, who often happen to be trained and professionally engaged in the social sciences. In the worst-case scenario it promotes misandry (hatred of men). One expression of this is the attribution of men's violence solely to their privileged politico-economic position where the only forms of violence considered are those directed against women -forgetting that men are far more often the victims, as well as the perpetrators, of violence. Slogans get promoted to the effect that women must take control of (rather than share) all aspects of societal control so as to create a better world. This attitude is understandable considering that women produce 67% of the work in this world we live in, obtain 10% of revenues and possess 1% of material goods -according to a recent United Nations report. However, denunciation and gratuitous ridiculing of biological research into sex differences and attempts to stifle theoretical debate about causes of sex differences (manifestations that regularly occur in the media) makes me very frustrated and disappoints me tremendously. I even believe that hurried rejection of biological research into the psychology of sex differences is to the disadvantage, in the long run, of feminism.

So allow me to briefly stake my ground on the two issues of "error of focus" and of ideological bias. I suppose I am just as biased as anybody else, but I am convinced, at least, that the reader will be better oriented (hopefully not prejudiced) to read this book if I put my cards on the table right away. I am a left-leaning heterosexual man, a sympathizer of feminism, trained evenly in the social and the natural sciences. I am a biological psychologist, a full time professional scholar, who has conducted lots of empirical research on the neuropsychology of sex differences. I have been intensely interested in model building in the field for about ten years. I have published pieces of what you are about to read in dozens of scientific articles and chapters.

I suspect that my ulterior motive in getting into this field in the first place must have been a spontaneous interest in differences between men and women, based on a natural propension toward, and awe of, the «other» sex of juvenile onset. However, as is usually the case in science, most of the relevant scientific material comes from elsewhere than the explicit or main object of interest. To understand machines, one has to understand some elementary physics. To understand pharmacology one has to understand a bit of chemistry. To understand sex differences, one has to know something about genetics, neurobiology, endocrinology, animal research. On the other hand, to understand simple things, one also needs to understand some of the more complex. Though a beehive is created by relatively simple animals, bee behavior is better understood when one masters the abstract architectural principles of geodesic domes composed of hexagonal cells -imagined and formulated by the world's best architects.

Practically all the human sex differences in mentation or behavior mentioned in this book are partly innate, partly learned. If that were all I had to say on the topic though, you would be wasting your time reading this book. The theme I have chosen to cover in this book is the biological dimension of sex differences, -not the sociocultural. However, I acknowledge that I could be helped to better constrain the meaning and importance of the biological mechanisms in question by specialists of social role psychology and cultural anthropology, and I will gladly profit from such helpful commentary. The reader is cautioned never to assume that I am implying that there are no sociocultural determinants involved in the behaviors covered in this book. The reader must keep in mind also that this book usually deals with brains of people living in western culture. The reason for that is that the relevant research that I have access to has been carried out, and published, in such western culture. Brains of people living in other cultures are not necessarily the same. For example, the two sides of the brain do not process language in the same asymmetrical manner in cultures with pictographic scripts (certain Japanese and Chinese scripts for example) or in cultures where no script exists at all (oral cultures). Consequently, certain sex differences observed in brain organization for language in “western cultures” could be quite specific. There are many other examples of culturally determined sex differences which probably affect brain organization -including in sex-specific manners, so the biological particularities of the sexes covered in this book should not be overly generalized. I have to insist on a final caveat: many if not most of the biological mechanisms of sex differences I will be describing in this book produce minor (subtle) effects. If the reader is looking for gross brain determinants of sex differences in mental life and behavior (aside from reproductive), he or she is on the wrong track. Perhaps because there is something esoteric about scientific terms in biology, small effects may sometimes appear overly impressive. Consequently, the reader is advised to refrain from exaggeration of the importance of neurobiological sex differences.

The interesting and challenging questions, the deeply scientific ones in the long term, in my opinion, are the following. What exactly are the true sex differences, and to what extent are these universal within the human species, and even across species ? Exactly how do biological and cultural interactions responsible for sex differences occur ? Which phenomena are more innate and which are more culturally determined, and how so ? How do these interactions change over time ? What are the detailed causes of the phenomena under investigation ?

Finally, allow me to explain a few additional details of this book's purpose and style. I wrote this book for the general educated public. It is designed to be a fast read, chalk full of up-to-date information, and integrated into coherent capsules (mini-themes) which hopefully will give food for further thought. Exemplary cases are frequently presented of medical conditions which are gender specific. My readership target is people who are just intrigued enough by the topic to be willing to purchase an inexpensive, succinct, state-of-the-art account, but who have no intention of becoming professional investigators in the field of sex differences. There are no graphics, no citations, no footnotes which would slow down and complicate the reading and increase the length and cost of the book. A detailed bibliography of high quality scientific reviews of the main topics of this book is provided, as are the detailed and specific reports of empirical research. I have tried to use everyday language as much as possible. And short of this, I have translated technical terms into plain English in parentheses. Hopefully, the reader will feel no need to consult a medical dictionary or a scientific encyclopedia. I have used the terms “gender” and “sex” interchangeably in this book, as have many other authors in this field -even though some purists consider that “gender” ought to be reserved for linguistic usage. I believe it has helped me make clearer statements in this domain of research and that it has helped me lighten up my prose. I wish you a happy, relaxed and fulfilling reading.

It is my pleasure to thank those who have helped me prepare this book. My warm gratitude goes out to Alain St Marseille, Loïc Villeneuve, Carolyn Abramovitz, Danielle Beauregard, Caroline Larocque, and Nicole Weekes who all graciously provided helpful proofreading of preliminary versions of this book. My colleague François Labelle graciously created 13 illustrations for this book.

Chapter 1

Development of maleness and femaleness

The evolution of sex differences. There would be no basis for writing this book if there were not an evolutionary segregation history of the sexes. Indeed, male and females of same species co-evolve differentially. Sex differences can be absolutely spectacular or banale, depending on the ecological niche of each species. For example, whereas human males and females are moderately different in form, horses are very similar and praying mantises are very different. So, on the biological scale of sex differences, humans are somewhere near the middle. Since the main theme of this book concerns differences between the sexes, it will be instructive to see to which extent evolution has sometimes created extreme differences between the two sexes of a given species.

We are accustomed to thinking that evolution proceeds by parentally transmissible mutations. Any mutation which confers an advantage to the progeny and to the progeny of the progeny will become more frequent over successive generations, and deleterious mutations will simply snuff themselves out. That's the ABC of evolutionary theory. But how are we to explain the evolutionary mechanism by which a male animal could resemble a member of another species more than the female of its own species ? It’s as if each sex were a species onto itself. The key to understanding how sexual dimorphism (differences in form between the two sexes) comes about is in the next section: it is primarily a matter of sex-chromosomes.

But before getting into that specific issue, I want to drive home the point that sexual dimorphism is a rich domain full of surprises throughout the animal kingdom, and that the study of biological sex differences is very complex, not to say treacherous. This will help the reader be more receptive to the theme of biological sex differences in humans which this book seeks to explore, and hopefully, also very critically minded. First, we usually think that it is the male which is supposed to be larger than the female. This, however, is not always the case. There are species of animals in which the male is much smaller. For example, in a certain species of deep sea fish, the female is several thousand times larger than the male. The male actually assumes the ecological niche of a parasite, hooking itself onto the female, near her brow, for a free ride and a free lunch (leftovers). It produces the required sperm at the appropriate moment -thus rendering the type of service that a well adapted parasite should. A roughly analogous situation is observed in the human organism: the female germ (ovum) and the male germ (spermatozoid) are like fish to the extent that they inhabit a liquid environment which they swim around in (the female reproductive tract). The ovum is a giant cell compared to the sperm which is a tiny cell 90,000 times smaller. Sexual dimorphism is also observed in the insect world. Praying mantis females are much larger than the males, and everybody knows their nuptial tale: the female starts eating the male's head while he is copulating with her, and she reaches the sexually critical parts just after he has managed to impregnate her -which he does without his head. Actually, this story is now believed by some to be a myth: the female mantis’s eyesight is so poor that she mistakes the male for a lunch, but does not usually eat him if he approaches her from behind. Certain birds present a similar body dimorphism, jacanases having a larger female than the male.

We are also accustomed to thinking that it is the male which assumes the role of the hunter or defender of the territory, at least in mammals. But this rule also suffers exceptions. Female lions hunt more than do the males. Female hyenas defend the territory more than do the males. It is also thought that males are more colored than females -especially in bird species. This is not true of humans, and the contrary is observed, though rarely, in certain species of birds. Two-toned (calico) cats are more frequently female and single toned cats more frequently male. All of these sexual dimorphisms (well maybe not the cats) speak to mutual adaptations of the two sexes of a given species -which have the net result of increasing viability of progeny. That is the fundamental reason why men and women are biologically different, even though some of the biological differences could be fortuitous, as is probably the case of cat-coat color. In fact, calico cats are female because the fur pigment is determined by a dominant gene located on the X chromosome. I explain this mechanism in an upcoming section.

One of the most adventurous and also the best treatises I have read on the evolution of sex differences in humans is in the latest and recent revision of a wonderful book by Rhawn Joseph entitled Neuropsychiatry, Neuropsychology and Clinical Neuroscience. In this book, Joseph speculates about how recent evolution (the last two million years or so) has led to the basic behavioral sex differences known to exist in modern day humans. Evolutionary changes can be understood (or at least speculated about) in terms of adaptations to ecological niches (specific living environments and conditions). To summarize Joseph’s point of view, he states that the big ecological change for hominids (primitive human species), with respect to emergence of sex differences, was big game hunting. This put additional pressure on natural selection toward rapid encephalization for both sexes (successive selection of mutations yielding larger and more efficient brains) and neoteny (increasingly severe and prolonged helplessness of the human newborn due to the mechanics of encephalization as well as to the newfound ability of big brained mothers to provide intensive and complex caring to the progeny). Big game hunting led to increased segregation of men’s and women’s activities (childrearing, food gathering and tool making in small quiet female collectives, and running, hunting and route finding for men). Men’s bodies and brains became more specialized for visuospatial processing, physical exertion, and aggression. Women’s bodies and brains became more specialized for childbearing, particularly of newborns with larger heads (thus the wider hips, and generally less efficient musculature for major physical exertion, other than childbearing of course). Women’s brains, claims Joseph, also became more specialized for intimate contact with children and other women (a “necessity” resulting mainly from neoteny). This would explain, he states, why women, like most female higher mammals (rats, dogs, monkeys, etc.), have a more emotionally diverse prosody (voice tone) and generally vocalize more often, though less loudly, than men (whose loudness he also relates to imperatives of hunting big game), and why women willingly and efficiently spend more time with their infants and children. Another segregated role of primitive women, Joseph thinks, was food gathering and tool making in small intimate relaxed groups of females with and without children (thus the emergence of the female disposition to promote, more than men, attachment in general). I add that other commentators consider that these latter activities contributed to better fine coordination in women, an eventuality which seems to have eluded Joseph. Joseph even goes as far as to state that the generally acknowledged female superiority in certain verbal domains draws its neurobiological origin from these roles, involving a lot of “chatter” - associated with select brain circuits belonging only to women. Joseph, a man, goes further than any woman scientist I know in eulogizing women’s “social-emotional... superiority”. In my own review of the relevant literature (see chapter 3), I come to a more reserved conclusion, just slightly less gynophyliac (pro-women).

Biological interpretations of sex differences in human behavior, as is pointed out by Joseph, may have tremendous implications for understanding sex-segregation of social roles. For example, why is it that women professionals overwhelmingly opt more than men for the nurturing professions (primary school teaching, daycare work, nursing, and now... medicine) ? Even more interestingly, why should they not ? Why should social reformers want to change this situation by injecting public money into programs designed to attract more women to the natural sciences, as is currently being done in several industrialized countries ? Is not the better solution to wage struggle for equal pay for work of equal value ? I say «Why should a child care worker make half the salary of an electronics technician, as is the case today, both bearing an equally demanding college degree ?». One of the reasons for wage differences is that union militancy is stronger in male dominated occupations, making it very very difficult for liberal governments to impose egalitarian pay scales by way of legislation. But with enough consciousness raising, women could become more militant, and men more sharing, I hope. You cant have your cake and eat it too. Complaining to governement is not militant enough, although it certainly does help.

In this book, we will explore sex differences not only in behavior but also in basic body function. This expanded focus is necessary to fully understand the complexity of the biological underpinnings of gender specificity in humans. Male animals are more often colorful or ostentatious, they are larger, they are more aggressive, and they are sexually less selective (they are more promiscuous or less choosy), and they have shorter life expectancy, than females. What could possibly be the link between all of these sex differences ? Females are believed to be more choosy because they are the ones who endure the more reproductively critical consequences of bad choice of mate. They invest more vital energy in reproduction (gestation, lactation, etc). One of their criteria for choice of a male mate is large body size and social dominance, which suggests good health and good ability to defend the territory. Given as much, males must attract the females with ostentatious plumage, fur, horns, etc., since the latter are the ones who do the choosing, and not the former. It is not advantageous for females to have large body formats because in times of food penury, they would then have trouble surviving. It is even in the female advantage to have a reduced metabolic rate, and special mechanisms of resistence to food shortages, so that she can carry through the full reproductive cycle. There is a limiting factor in evolutionary increases of body size, and that is reduced life expectancy. The male is more expendable. He may reproduce efficiently and quickly, and then it may be in the interest of the promulgation of his own genes to clear the way for availability of food for his progeny. He does this by konking out. Larger bodies result, among other things, from faster cell division, and all else being equal, entail greater expenditure of energy. Consequently, the ability of the body to replace lost cellular components reaches its limit earlier. If this doesn’t suffice, the male may even be more likely to get himself killed by behavioral means. However, the male must not die before having transmitted his genes, nor can he be entirely dispensed with when his niche calls upon him to defend the females and the young against predators. So his shorter life expectancy has to be constrained at some point. There are a minority of animal species which dont fit into this scheme, because they have found special ways to adapt to particular ecological niches. However, even these exceptions confirm the general idea: species in which males and females are not dimorphic present the following characteristics: male and female life expectancy tends to be the same, the males tend to care for the young, to have no special role in defending the territory, and to be less aggressive. Mating patterns are more monogamous.

Within primate species, baboons represent an extreme example of adaptation to the sexually dimorphic niche, the female’s body weight reaching only 50% of the male’s. They are very polygamous. Gibbons represent the other extreme with female weight reaching 99% of the male’s. Like a 1950’s -style nuclear family, gibbons were thought to live in stable groups of five of six in which a mom and pop mate for life and raise their offspring. Family comes first and the only excitement comes when the group spars with the neighbors. The impression was that they were monogamous and not very social with other groups,  therefore, that they were fairly boring, says Thad Bartlett, an anthropologist and Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. But in a recent report at the annual meeting of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists, Bartlett showed that gibbons are anything but boring. He and others have found that although many gibbon pairs mate for years on end, like human families of the 90s they have plenty of drama, infidelity, divorce, abandonment, and step-children from other unions, as well as much socializing and kinship among members of different groups. The findings show how important it is to explore what "monogamy" means for primates, and underscore the social complexity of these intelligent animals. Gibbons really have been the prototype for monogamous primates, says Phyllis Dolhinow, a biological anthropologist at the University of California, Berkeley. It turns out things just aren’t as tightly structured as had been assumed. Humans are situated between baboons and gibbons with regard to sexual dimorphism in body size, the female weighing in at 85% of the male. The general scheme I have just outlined does not apply only to primates. It also applies to insects, fish, reptiles, birds, and lower mammals. This scheme has been nicely elaborated by the Hoyenga couple in their wonderful book entitled The question of sex differences: Psychological, cultural and biological issues, published in 1979.

To conclude this section on evolutionary underpinnings of sex differences, let me bring up the theme of overdetermination. Overdetermination is a concept which preoccupied the French marxist philosopher, Louis Althusser a few years ago. It applies to psychology, philosophy, biology and dynamic systems in general. It is the idea according to which in very complex dynamic systems, the bifurcations in the deep long term trajectories result from a convergence in space and time of a multitude of efficient causes, which may in fact be more or less dependent on each other, or even entirely fortuitous. This is the case for important evolutionary mutational sequences leading to intricate complex adaptations -including sex differences. Let’s take just one example. In this book, I will give a lot of details about the different life expectancies of men and women. In fact, this sex difference was surely highly overdetermined in evolution: 1) because we are a sexually dimorphic species, there is a sexual segregation in parental nurturant behavior, which presses for shorter male longevity, so as to optimize available resources for the group; 2) because we are sexually dimorphic, with the male being specialized for defending the territory and hunting, he has a higher metabolism and a specialized vascular system to drive his greater muscle mass, all of which shorten his life expectancy; 3) the human male’s prenatal testosterone and Y chromosome both contribute to putting him at risk for more life threatening diseases and conditions; 4) the human female’s stronger immune system is adapted to her childbearing role and protects her from fatal diseases; 5) the human male’s adaptation to territorialism and hunting puts him at risk for far more life threatening behaviors, for himself and others.

Femaleness is X and maleness is Y. The human male and female resemble each other more than they differ. Sexual dimorphism (marked differences in the appearance of the body) is undoubtedly very advantageous for certain species such as guppies, peacocks and praying mantises, but this is not as much the case for most primates (macaques, chimpanzees, humans). The major differences between the bodies of human males and females reside in the sexual and reproductive organs, and only to a lesser degree in body traits related to non-reproductive specialization (hunting for males, child rearing for females, for example). In psychological terms, maleness and femaleness are continuously distributed traits. Each man and each woman is psychologically more or less androgynous (depository of male and female traits). However, in the concrete (biological) sense of whether one disposes of a male reproductive system or a female one, humans are very markedly bimodally distributed: most humans are wholly male or wholly female. Men are characterized by the presence of an X and a Y chromosome in every cell of their body, while women are characterized by the presence of two X chromosomes. These chromosomes are called "gonosomes" because they determine the development of the gonads (testicles for men, ovaries for women) which in turn determine the development of further sex-specific traits. The sex chromosomes represent the 23rd pair in humans, all the other pairs being "autosomes" (meaning having to do with determining every biological trait of the self, except for the person's gender).

There are two major phases during which the body is sexualized. The first is prenatal. During the second trimester of pregnancy, the male or female gonad (testicle or ovary) begins to secrete its sex-specific steroid hormones. These hormones are secreted into the fetus's blood stream and travel throughout the body, affecting overall development, including of the brain. This first steroid bath is termed the structuring phase of sexual development. As I will demonstrate throughout this book, this phase is the one during which the basic anatomic sex differences are implemented, penises and vaginas, sexual identity, sexual orientation, and many of the subtler sex differences as well.

The second major maturational event is puberty. The gonads become particularly active, secrete high concentrations of steroids, and complete the processes of sexualization of the body and of the mind. The body traits which result from this phase include body hair in the sex-specific areas, development of breasts, etc. This phase is called the activational phase of sexual development.

These two levels of hormonal determination of behavior I have just described are standard teaching in any introductory text. However, I believe their is a third, higher level of mechanism, more subtle than the previous two, which is rarely mentioned. I call it the "physiological" level. Indeed, as I show in detail in chapter 9, hormonal variations accompanying the menstrual cycle, pregnancy, and menopause have effects on brain neurotransmitters (molecules used by neurons to communicate with each other) and even on neuronal anatomy -including in the human species. Though in humans changing concentrations of circulating hormones in adulthood can be thought to affect brain function only in women, this has been found not to be the case. Testosterone level fluctuates mildly though significantly on a seasonal basis in normal men. Contrary to what is commonly believed, it is not in spring that testosterone blood concentrations are at their highest, but in fall. It is in winter that they are at their lowest. This cycling of testosterone characterizes not only human males but infrahuman primate males as well and the difference between the two extremes reaches 300%. Several studies have tracked prevalences of male-typical behaviors over the months of the year. Monkey mounting peaks in fall and generally correlates highly with testosterone levels. In humans, incidence of rape peaks in August, as does violent crime. Doreen Kimura found that cognitive performances of men track these subtle variations in hormones. This suggested to her that even in normal men there are subtle effects of testosterone fluctuations on brain function during adulthood.

Male and female traits can be directly caused by genes located on the gonosomes without the later occurring intervention of sex hormones, the male-typical color-blindness being an example. However, most gender-specific traits, termed «sex limited», result from an interaction between the two. Male baldness is is caused by an autosomal dominant gene which produces the undesireable phenotype only with the concurrant influence of circulating testosterone -which is itself modulated by action of the gonosomes.

From hormones to the brain: Of birds and rats. Whereas in humans, such interactions are relatively subtle, in certain male birds, some of these "physiological" interactions are spectacular. The most evolved part of the mammalian brain is composed of two large globes called hemispheres. There is a left hemisphere specialization for the neural control of singing in several species of birds. The brain asymmetries are observed, however, only during the mating season when the bird actually sings. The hypoglossal nerve, controlling the bird’s syrinx (from which the song emanates), is larger on the left than on the right side of the brain. It has been elegantly demonstrated that the surge of circulating testosterone occurring at this time is the main cause of the development of the brain asymmetry. The asymmetry dissipates after the mating season and reappears in the same bird the next year.

Another piece of evidence to the effect that steroid hormones may have something to do with the adult maintenance of gender-specific hemispheric asymmetries comes from research published by a team of Russian researchers. They studied the influence of gonadectomy (surgical removal of the testicles or ovaries) in newborn and mature male and female rats on functional interhemispheric asymmetry of two behaviors: the reaction of avoidance of pain and investigative activity in the open field. Potassium was applied to an exposed brain hemisphere of the rat thus temporarily inactivating that hemisphere. Neonatally gonadectomized rats have no interhemispheric asymmetry of the studied reactions. In male rats gonadectomized in the mature state, investigative activity in the open field, in contrast to intact animals, was right hemisphere dominant. Ovariectomy of mature female rats led to the increase of the dominance of the left hemisphere in both the emotional and the investigative activity in the open field. Gonadectomy of male and female mature rats had an opposite effect on the functioning of the right hemisphere: facilitatory in male rats and inhibitory in female ones.

The basic human prototype is, in one respect, female. The larger a chromosome is, the more important is its role in maintaining life. The X chromosome is in fact a rather large chromosome which functions essentially as does a medium-sized autosome. In sheer size it comes closest to the eleventh chromosome, which by definition is the eleventh largest. It programs the creation of a diversity of amino acids, proteins, enzymes and so forth. It is really just the tiny Y chromosome which determines the sex of the progeny, namely maleness. Why is this so ? In fact, biologically speaking the male can be considered a slight complication of the basic biological prototype of the human species, which is female. A person who is born the victim of a chromosomal aberration such as having only one X chromosome, ought, arithmetically, to look half male and half female. Recall that the father carries an X and a Y chromosome, and the mother carries two X chromosomes. However, the person born with only an X chromosome, although very androgynous, looks more like a female. As we shall see in detail later, this condition is called Turner's syndrome. A person who, for any number of reasons, has an interruption of the developmental cascade leading to the male phenotype, will essentially look like a female. Humans do not need chromosomes or gonads or sex-specific hormones to look female. But they do need all of these things to look male.

It is of note that the chain of transformation (synthesis) of molecules from sterol to testosterone (the male hormone) involves an intermediary step which is estrogen (the female hormone). Both estradiol and testosterone (as well as the other steroids) are highly lipophilic (fat solubile) and thus easily pass through the lipid bilayer of cells. Thus intracellular concentrations of steroids are related to actual circulating levels. What determines whether a cell responds to a steroid is either what sorts of cell-surface receptors it has (so-called nongenomic effects of steroids and maybe better termed cell-surface effects) and what sort of intracellular receptors it has. A great many cells clearly have intracellular androgen receptors, thus there are many actions of androgen where it is acting as an androgen and not as estrogen. Many many cells have estrogen receptors as well as the enzymes to convert some androgens to estrogens. It is within these cells that testosterone (or any other aromatizable androgen) can enter the cell, be converted to estrogen, and then activate estrogen receptors. But only a very small percentage ( ................
................

In order to avoid copyright disputes, this page is only a partial summary.

Google Online Preview   Download