Sex and the Brain
16 important questions on Sex and the Brain
Why is the hypothalamus important in terms of hormones?
What is a genotype?
What pair number are the sex chromosomes?
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What is the Mullerian inhibitory hormone?
If it wasn't for the Mullerian inhibitory hormone, all foetuses would result as female
When are androgens released? What does this lead to?
Estradiol is important in masculanising male brains. Why does estradiol not masculanise females' brains?
What is meant by sexually dimorphic behaviour?
What happens when the female rat is ready to mate?
This prompts the male to mount the female and begin to mate, mediated by the preoptic area of the hypothalamus
What happens to the oestragen levels around ovulation?
What area of the brain stops males from mating when the suffer a lesion to it?
When this happens the males continue to show interest in females e.g. monkeys with lesions to the hypothalamus will not mate with females but they will masturbate while watching them. i.e. their ability to cary out a sexual act is not limited; however, they do not want to copulate with a female
What experiment studied sexual motivation and mating?
Result - a rat with lesions to the hypothalamus will continue to press the bar to gain access to the females but they do not copulate when the arrive. On the other hand a rat with a lesion to the amygdala shows no interest in accessing the females, but will copulate if they are placed in the cage.
hypothalamus = sexual behaviour
amygdala = motivation
What are 3 outcomes of lesions to the frontal lobe regarding sexual behaviour?
2. Can bring about erotomania - a condition in which they think the other person is in love with them
3. Lesions to the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex is likely to result in aggressive sexual behaviour
When is oxytocin released during childbirth? What cognitive effects does it have?
What kinds of tests do women tend to perform better in and what type of tests do men perform better in? What evolutionary reasons are behind this? What neural evidence is behind this?
Men do better in spatial reasoning tests
Evolutionary reasons
Men have tended to range over larger territories than women and so needed greater spatial abilities. It can also be argued that women were left behind in social groups and thus were more likely to develop tools for social communication
Neural evidence
The frontal lobe and the corpus callosum is larger in women compared to men
Why do men tend to be more aggressive than women?
What evidence shows that difference in brain structure reflects sexual orientation?
2. Gay men have symmetric brains like straight women
3. The amygdala of straight women and gay men connect to areas of the brain that manifest mood, fear and anxiety
4. The amygdala of gay women and straight men connects more to the sensorimotor systems and striatum of the basil ganglia - much more action related response
5. The SCN (suprachiasmatic) is twice as large in gay men as heterosexual men
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