A detailed look at children’s brains might show how sex and gender are different, new study says
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The concept of gender and sex show up in different parts of the brain, a study finds. |
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Sex and gender are often conflated or equated in everyday conversations, and most American adults believe a person’s gender is determined by sex assigned at birth. But a new study of nearly 5,000 9- and 10-year-olds found that sex and gender map onto largely distinct parts of the brain.
The research gives a first insight into how sex and gender may have “measurable and unique influences” on the brain, study authors said, just as other experiences have been shown to shape the brain.
“Moving forward, we really need to consider both sexes and genders separately if we better want to understand the brain,” said Dr. Elvisha Dhamala, an assistant professor of psychiatry at the Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research and the Zucker Hillside Hospital in Glen Oaks, California, and a co-author of the study, published Friday in the journal Science Advances.
The researchers on the new study defined sex as what was assigned to the child at birth. In the US, clinicians make this assignment based on genitalia. Most people are assigned either female or male, according to the research; the rest are intersex, a person whose sexual or reproductive anatomy doesn’t fit this male/female binary.
The researchers defined gender as an individual’s attitude, feelings and behaviors, as well as socially constructed roles. They noted specifically that gender is not binary, meaning not all people identify as either female or male.
Both sex and gender are a core part of human experience. They’re key to how people perceive others and how they understand themselves. Both can influence behavior as well as health, the study authors say.
The researchers looked at brain imaging data from 4,757 children in the United States, 2,315 assigned female at birth and 2,442 assigned male at birth, who were ages 9 and 10 and were a subset of the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) study, the largest long-term study of brain development and child health in the United States. Over a period of 10 years, the children in the ABCD study underwent comprehensive neuroimaging, behavioral, developmental and psychiatric assessments.
A 2022 poll showed that most American adults — and the vast majority of conservatives — believe that a person’s gender is determined by the sex assigned at birth. The distinction is key to gender-affirming care, medical treatment for people who identify as a gender that is different from the one they were assigned at birth. Conservative politicians have pushed for a record number of bans on such care, and nearly half of US states have enacted bans on gender-affirming care for minors.
Dr. Avram Holmes, an associate professor of psychiatry at Rutgers University:
The field of neuroscience has only just begun to acknowledge and address the presence of biases and barriers to inclusivity within research.
Have you seen this video from 2010?
ReplyDeleteGender Orientation: IS Conditions Within The TS Brain
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A3C4ZJ7HyuE
this supports an article in the WSJ about 10 years ago.Entitled "caught between male and female" the author (a Dept head at a California U) contended that while in the womb a fetus receives releases from the mom at different times. one for sex. the other is a misfire and forms the brain in a gender mode that varies from the sex mode. this sure explains a lot
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