A key barrier to equality is crumbling, thanks to a new imaging study (see left), which blows away the idea that male and female brains are distinct. It means the power of neuroimaging to explore and explain links between brain and behaviour can at last come into its own, but free of the constraints of preconceived stereotypes. Our understanding of sex-related brain differences will move beyond simple and outdated dichotomous thinking. Knowing the controversy associated with such declarations, the study's authors, led by Daphna Joel, used several datasets from different laboratories and investigated the veracity of theirfindings using more than a single neuroimaging measure. The work adds to similar discussions in neuroscience and to recent research that finds earlier "well-established" sex differences in brain structures turn out to be false on careful reanalysis.
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