Lise Eliot

Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science

Human brain sex differences have fascinated scholars for centuries and become a key focus of neuroscientists since the dawn of MRI. We recently published a major review in Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews showing that most male–female brain differences in humans are small and few have been reliably replicated. Although widely cited, this work...

Long overlooked in neuroscience research, sex and gender are increasingly included as key variables potentially impacting all levels of neurobehavioral analysis. Still, many neuroscientists do not understand the difference between the terms “sex” and “gender,” the complexity and nuance of each, or how to best include them as variables in research d...

Despite decades of pursuit, human brain imaging has yet to uncover clear neural correlates of male-female behavioral difference. Given that such behavior does not always align with sex categories, we argue that neuroimaging research may find more success by partitioning subjects along nonbinary gender attributes in addition to binary sex. We review...

Sex/gender differences in the human brain attract attention far beyond the neuroscience community. Given the interest of nonspecialists, it is important that researchers studying human female–male brain difference assume greater responsibility for the accurate communication of their findings.

HIGHLIGHTS: - Meta-synthesis of 3 decades of human brain sex difference findings. - Few male/female differences survive correction for brain size. - When present, sex accounts for about 1% of variance in structure or laterality. - Male and female brains are monomorphic, not dimorphic, in structure and function.

With the explosion of neuroimaging, differences between male and female brains have been exhaustively analyzed. Here we synthesize three decades of human MRI and postmortem data, emphasizing meta-analyses and other large studies, which collectively reveal few reliable sex/gender differences and a history of unreplicated claims. Males’ brains are la...

Of the various behavioral differences between males and females, physical aggression is one of the largest. Regardless of gender, children’s physical aggressiveness peaks between two and four years of age but then starts diverging, as girls learn more quickly than boys to suppress such overt behaviors. By puberty there is a sizable gender differenc...

Sex difference in the brain is of great interest, because it is believed to reveal the "real" or biologically-predetermined basis for differences between men and women's behavior. However, current neuroscience research does not support this conception. First, most male/female brain differences are attributable to body size; thus, all brain structur...

With the explosion of neuroimaging, it is clear that sex/gender is a key covariate influencing brain structure and function. Here we synthesize three decades of human brain MRI and postmortem data, emphasizing meta-analyses and other large studies, but the result is few reliable sex/gender findings and many unreplicated claims. Males' brains are la...

Purpose: Pubertal suppression is standard of care for early pubertal transgender youth to prevent the development of undesired and distressing secondary sex characteristics incongruent with gender identity. Preliminary evidence suggests pubertal suppression improves mental health functioning. Given the widespread changes in brain and cognition that...

The hunt for male and female distinctions inside the skull is a lesson in bad research practice, writes Lise Eliot. The hunt for male and female distinctions inside the skull is a lesson in bad research practice, writes Lise Eliot. A coloured 3D magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scan of a human brain.

Many brain and behavioral disorders differentially affect men and women. The new National Institutes of Health requirement to include both male and female animals in preclinical studies aims to address such health disparities, but we argue that the mandate is not the best solution to this problem. Sex differences are highly species-specific, tied t...

Hippocampal atrophy is found in many psychiatric disorders that are more prevalent in women. Sex differences in memory and spatial skills further suggest that males and females differ in hippocampal structure and function. We conducted the first meta-analysis of male-female difference in hippocampal volume (HCV) based on published MRI studies of he...

Researchers at Virginia Tech used sophisticated electrophysiologic imaging of the brain to examine brain development in 508 normal children ranging in age from 2 months to 16 years. These researchers found that while the areas of the brain involved in language and fine-motor skills such as handwriting mature about four years earlier in girls than i...

Of the various rationales for sex-segregated education, the claim that boys and girls should be taught in separate classrooms because their brains differ is arguably the weakest. Existing neuroscience research has identified few reliable differences between boys’ and girls’ brains relevant to learning or education. And yet, prominent single-sex sch...

Single-sex schooling lacks scientific support and may exaggerate sexism and gender stereotyping.

In a fast-paced world which needs nimble brains and sophsticated thinking, we must junk stereotypes about gender differences once and for all

The preference for playing hockey, or house, in the brain are small—unless grown-up house, is far from fixed. Sex differences up assumptions magnify them

Discusses the centers of language in the brain and the critical period for language acquisition. Explains developmental milestones of language development--receptive language, babbling, short phrases, full sentences--in the context of brain development. Emphasizes parents' role in language development, including talking to the child, dialogic readi...

1. Intracellular recordings, in conjunction with fura-2 fluorescence imaging, were used to evaluate the contribution of the different Ca2+ channel subtypes to the Ca2+ influx induced by back-propagating trains of action potentials. High-threshold channels contributed mainly to Ca2+ influx in pyramidal cell somata and proximal dendrites, whereas low...

1. Specific Ca2+ channel blocker were used to isolate and characterize different components of whole cell Ba2+ current in granule neurons acutely dissociated from guinea pig hippocampal slices. 2. Granule cell Ba2+ current peaked around +5 mV, whether elicited by step or ramp commands, and was completely blocked by 100 microM Cd2+. 3. Saturating do...

An Aplysia motor neuron cocultured with a single presynaptic sensory neuron exhibits spontaneous miniature EPSPs or EPSCs ("minis") that can be used to assay the release process directly, independent of the presynaptic action potential. Sensory-motor synapses in culture undergo homosynaptic depression with low frequency stimulation (< 1 Hz) and pos...

Synapses made by Aplysia sensory neurons onto motor- and interneuron followers in the intact nervous system exhibit an associative form of synaptic facilitation that is thought to contribute to classical conditioning of the animal's gill and siphon withdrawal reflex (Hawkins et al., 1983; Walters and Byrne, 1983). Here we demonstrate that a similar...

Modulation of transmitter release underlies several forms of learning-related synaptic plasticity, including presynaptic facilitation and long-term potentiation. Although the presynaptic terminals of most neurons are not accessible for direct study, it has often been possible to correlate changes in calcium influx in the cell body, owing to modulat...

The Ca2+/calmodulin (CaM)-activated adenylate cyclase has been implicated as playing an important associative role in classical conditioning in both Aplysia and Drosophila. Studies of the cyclase in mammalian cerebral cortex have suggested that Ca2+/CaM sensitivity is confined to a subpopulation of total cyclase activity. We investigated the proper...