Sex Differences in the Brain: From Genes to Behavior Review

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(More customer reviews)When it comes to studying the nature and origin of differences between men and women, one quickly encounters an aggressive cacophony of politics. Often, the scientists themselves are the most egregious perpetrators of this confusion, selectively coloring and distorting findings to suit their personal agendas.

The fact is, there is an overwhelming amount of science addressing sex differences. And no single book does a better job of communicating the bulk of this science in a neutral fashion than Sex Differences in the Brain. As SDintB asserts early on, accurate knowledge of sexual dimorphisms in the brain isn't just a political or philosophical issue, but a health issue: men and women suffering from multifarious sources of neural and psychiatric debilitation may require different treatment depending on their gender. This is a point often overlooked in the rush to insist that men and women are fundamentally the same in the brain.

Make no mistake: this is an academic book, aimed at scholars. It's dense with invaluable references, with chapters authored by a variety of scientists from a respectably wide diversity of disciplines. It covers almost every major area of sex differences: genetic, behavioral neuroendocrinology, neurocognition, neuroplasticity, neurophysiology, psychiatry, pharmacogenetics, stress response. The chapters are quite thorough, and generally review the available research in a neutral fashion.

There's probably no better place to start an inquiry into what truly makes men and women different than Sex Differences in the Brain.

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Product Description:
Sex is a fundamentally important biological variable. Recent years have seen significant progress in the integration of sex in many aspects of basic and clinical research, including analyses of sex differences in brain function. Significant advances in the technology available for studying the endocrine and nervous systems are now coupled with a more sophisticated awareness of the interconnections of these two communication systems of the body. A thorough understanding of the current knowledge, conceptual approaches, methodological capabilities, and challenges is a prerequisite to continued progress in research and therapeutics in this interdisciplinary area.
Sex Differences in the Brain provides scientists with the basic tools for investigating sex differences in brain and behavior and insight into areas where important progress in understanding physiologically relevant sex differences has already been made. This book was edited and co-authored by members of the Isis Fund Network on Sex, Gender, Drugs and the Brain, sponsored by the Society for Womens Health Research.

The book is arranged in three parts. The first part of the book introduces the study of sex differences in the brain, with an overview of how the brain, stress systems, and pharmacogenetics differ in males and females and how this information is important for the study of behavior and neurobiology of both genders.The second part presents examples of sex differences in neurobiology and behavior from both basic and clinical research perspectives, covering both humans and nonhuman animals.The final part discusses sex differences in the neurobiology of disease and neurological disorders.
For interested individuals as well as those who are considering conducting research at the intersections of endocrinology, neuroscience, and other areas of biomedicine, the study of sex differences offers exciting and challenging questions and perspectives. This book is intended as a guide and resource for clinicians, scientists, and students.

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Why Is Sex Fun?: The Evolution Of Human Sexuality (Science Masters) Review

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(More customer reviews)There is a minor truth-in-advertising issue regarding Why Is Sex Fun?: The Evolution of Human Sexuality, by physiologist Jared Diamond: The title question is never really addressed. The true theme seems to be How Sex Came to be Sex as We Know It. Not that this isn't interesting in its own right, of course. It's just that the original question is worthy of discussion too.
Why is Sex Fun? reads like a lecture series rather than a book. Apparently intended to provide the reader with an overview of the latest thinking on the evolutionary aspects of the subject, this short work includes sections on different sexual (and mate) selection strategies employed by males and females (presumably based on unequal "investments" in the methods of getting one's genes into the next generation); lactation (why milk is produced by females, but not, as a rule, males); how and why humans, almost uniquely, came to engage in engage in recreational sex; the unequal domestic roles played by males and females, particularly in child rearing; female menopause (which is, again, nearly unique to humans); and sexual signaling (Diamond considers penis length in human males to be a prime example, but not necessarily a signal directed at females).
As fascinating as these subjects are, there is much more that is left out. Any full discussion of human sexuality, especially with the high-order concept of "fun" in its presumed abstract, needs to deal with that odd species' whole gamut of non-procreational expression: homosexuality, old-age love, and sex-as-power, for non-inclusive example. But Why is Sex Fun? treats the very large subject of recreational sex only from the "selfish gene" point of view. Even then, there is at least one major methodological criticism: Most evolutionary biologists and evolutionary psychologists go to great lengths to bring out the importance of "ancestral environment". That is, gene-based behavioral tendencies have evolved over a great deal of time, so it doesn't do a lot of good to consider them only from the standpoint of a modern participant. This problem crops up in Diamond's discussion of male hunting strategies. In a modern hunter-gatherer society, men typically go for the "big kill" (a large mammal, for instance), while women are more content to gather roots and so on. Diamond makes the point that the male strategy makes no sense nutritionally, so the answer must be found in differential sexual strategies. However, the possibility is not mentioned that hunting patterns may have evolved when big game was, in fact, rather more plentiful than it is today.
All this is a pity, because we know, from the author's other works (especially the wonderfully told Guns, Germs, and Steel), that he is quite capable of a fully formed presentation. Sex deserves it.

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