BEGIN:VCALENDAR
VERSION:2.0
PRODID:-//Talks.cam//talks.cam.ac.uk//
X-WR-CALNAME:Talks.cam
BEGIN:VEVENT
SUMMARY:Rethinking sex and the brain beyond the binary: Mosaic brains in a
  multi-dimensional space - Professor Daphna Joel\, School of Psychological
  Sciences and Sagol School of Neuroscience\, Tel Aviv University\, Israel 
    
DTSTART:20191011T153000Z
DTEND:20191011T170000Z
UID:TALK128734@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Louise White
DESCRIPTION:Differences between the brains of women and men are often take
 n as evidence that human brains belong to two types (“female” and “m
 ale” brains) or aligned along a male-female continuum (e.g.\, the extrem
 e male brain theory of autism). Yet\, animal studies reveal that sex effec
 ts on the brain are exerted by genetic\, hormonal and environmental factor
 s that act via multiple independent mechanisms\, and are modulated by inte
 rnal and external conditions. These observations led to the hypothesis tha
 t sex effects do not add-up consistently\, but rather ‘mix-up’ within 
 each brain to create unique ‘mosaics’ of female-typical and male-typic
 al features. Analysis of magnetic resonance images of human brains and of 
 post-mortem measures of human hypothalamus supported the mosaic hypothesis
 . A recent analysis of the structure of over 2\,100 brains revealed that t
 he brain “types” typical of women are also typical of men\, and vice v
 ersa\, and that large sex/gender differences are found only in the frequen
 cy of some rare brain types. This new multi-dimensional description of hum
 an brains has implications for scientific efforts to study sex and the bra
 in as well as for social debates on long-standing issues such as the desir
 ability of single-sex education and the meaning of sex/gender as a social 
 category.\n\nShort bio: Daphna Joel is a professor of psychology and neuro
 science at Tel-Aviv University. For many years she had studied the involve
 ment of basal ganglia-thalamocortical circuits in normal and abnormal beha
 vior. More recently\, Prof. Joel has combined her expertise as a neuroscie
 ntist with her interest in gender studies and expanded her work to researc
 h questions related to brain\, sex and gender. In her research\, she uses 
 a wide range of methods to analyze diverse datasets\, from large collectio
 ns of brain scans to information obtained with self-report questionnaires.
 \n
LOCATION:Ground Floor Lecture Theatre\, Department of Psychology
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR