Español Português
"THE 21st-Century BRAIN", Explaining, Mending and Manipulating the Mind, Steven Rose, 2005, pages 81 - 83
Developing Difference: Sex/Gender (1)
Despite the opening paragraphs of this chapter which talked of both similarities and differences, the story so far has been a universalistic one, of generic "normal" brain development. But brains develop differently from one another even in the womb. Each is unique, genetically and environmentally, even prior to birth as the foetus begins the task of self-construction.
The general pattern of neuronal wiring, of synaptic connections, of cortical sulci and gyri, of modular neuronal columns is universal, but the specificities are individual, the constructs of every about-to-be-human foetus’s developing lifeline.
The complexities of interpreting such differences are of course the stuff of controversy, none greater than that surrounding sex and gender, insofar as these can be disentangled. After all, "boy or girl?" is likely to be the second question asked by the parents of any newborn baby, although the answer isn’t necessarily as straight forward as it sometimes seems.
Sex (as opposed to gender) begins at conception. Of the twenty-three pairs of chromosomes containing the DNA we inherit, one pair differs from the start. In normal development, females have a pair of X chromosomes, males one X and one Y.
So the patterns of genetic inheritance also vary between the sexes from the outset. (There are also some abnormal patterns of inheritance such as Turner’s Syndrome, where a female inherits only one X chromosome, and XYY, in which males inherit an extra Y.)
The general pattern of neuronal wiring, of synaptic connections, of cortical sulci and gyri, of modular neuronal columns is universal, but the specificities are individual, the constructs of every about-to-be-human foetus’s developing lifeline.
The complexities of interpreting such differences are of course the stuff of controversy, none greater than that surrounding sex and gender, insofar as these can be disentangled. After all, "boy or girl?" is likely to be the second question asked by the parents of any newborn baby, although the answer isn’t necessarily as straight forward as it sometimes seems.
Sex (as opposed to gender) begins at conception. Of the twenty-three pairs of chromosomes containing the DNA we inherit, one pair differs from the start. In normal development, females have a pair of X chromosomes, males one X and one Y.
So the patterns of genetic inheritance also vary between the sexes from the outset. (There are also some abnormal patterns of inheritance such as Turner’s Syndrome, where a female inherits only one X chromosome, and XYY, in which males inherit an extra Y.)
"THE 21st-Century BRAIN", Explaining, Mending and Manipulating the Mind, Steven Rose, 2005, pages 81 - 83
No comments:
Post a Comment