Neuroscientist debunks the myth that the male and female brain are different
‘There's one type of brain — just like there's one type of kidney, one type of heart, one type of lung’
When people started imaging the human brain, they expected to find dimorphic brains — with a distinct set of structures in men and women.
Early studies looking at sex differences in the brain did find a distinction, but only had a handful of participants. When the sample size was increased, scientists found the human brain is sexually monomorphic.
"The differences between human male and female brains are so subtle, they could never be called dimorphic. They could never be called two shapes," says neuroscientist Lise Eliot in Fluid: Life Beyond the Binary, a documentary from The Nature of Things.
"There's one type of brain — just like there's one type of kidney, one type of heart, one type of lung," says Eliot.
Fluid is hosted by renowned non-binary comedian Mae Martin. In the video above, Martin wonders if their brain scan can reveal anything about their gender, so Eliot takes a look.
"Well, Mae, I can tell you you have a beautiful brain," Eliot says. "And there's a lot I can tell you about how it works. But the one thing that imaging can't tell us is a person's sexual orientation or their gender identity."
Watch Fluid: Life Beyond the Binary on CBC Gem.
