2023-05-08 21:00:18
Many studies have shown that in countries where gender inequality is greatest, women are more at risk of mental illness and tend to be less successful in studies than men. A person’s brain, like the amount of fat accumulated in the belly or the strength of the muscles, changes with the circumstances of the environment, although sometimes, hidden by the skull, these transformations do not seem so evident. In Chinafor example, it has been observed that dementia is higher among women than among men, and lack of exercise or illiteracy has been identified as risk factors for suffering from this type of disease.
To test whether the circumstances of greater or less inequality between the sexes are related to differences in the brain structure of men and women, an international group of scientists took almost 8,000 magnetic resonance images of people from 29 countries. in an article that the magazine has published PNAS affirm that in the countries with greater gender equality, measured with the Gender Inequality Index and the Gender Gap Index, no significant differences were observed between the brains of one and the other. However, where there was greater inequality, they found that the thickness of the right side of the cerebral cortex was less in women.
The authors acknowledge the complexity of gender inequality indices, which in turn interact with different biological mechanisms, but have hypotheses to explain their observations. The anterior cingulate cortex and the orbitofrontal cortex, where differences in thickness were found, have been linked to responses to inequality or resistance to adversity. In addition, changes in these regions have been seen in ailments where stress is considered a central mechanism and have been seen to lose weight during depression or reduced by post-traumatic stress.
Nicolás Crossley, professor at the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile and co-author of the study, explains that this type of work points to an observable effect of gender inequality in the brain in people who are exposed to permanent subordination and even to the physical violence. Although the study does not establish a causal relationship, and “these results are not necessary to make the case that gender inequality is wrong,” he believes that it can lend weight to the arguments in favor of policies that reduce inequality. “In all legislations, when there is an act of violence, if that act is associated with visual and significant changes in the other, the severity of the violence is considered greater. With our work, in a certain way, we show that there is a real damage caused by gender inequality ”, he defends.
Origin of differences
For Crossley, these results may also influence ideas about the origin of differences between men and women found in societies around the world: “There are people who argue that these differences in social roles are the result of biological differences and here we show that some of these differences can be changed by the social environment”. In addition to influencing the way of viewing the origin of inequalities, the authors, in a phrase questioned by other colleagues who have not participated in the study, state in the introduction to their article that their results “provide initial evidence for policies to gender equality informed by neuroscience”. According to the Chilean researcher, the ability to measure brain changes and relate them to changes in gender policies can be used to “monitor how certain public interventions are reflected in these brain measurements or tell us at what critical moments in the development of a person is It is more important to apply public policies”.
Bruce Wexler, a professor at Yale University, believes that “the most surprising thing would have been if researchers had not found differences in the brains of men and women where women have much less intellectually stimulating jobs, have had little access to education or are not encouraged to perform physical activity”. “In addition, in those countries, they are subjected to violence, which we already know can affect brain volume, and the data cited by the authors showing more depression and other mental health problems must mean that there are changes in brain function and at some level in the structure of the brain,” Wexler explains. He is the author of the book brain and culture (Brain and Culture), in which he explores the synergies between human neuroplasticity and the fact that humans change their environment which, in turn, changes their brains.
Wexler questions whether the authors’ assertion about the value of their results for promoting equality policies is supported. He believes that “although resonances, due to their ability to measure the brain, can impress some people and move them to act, other people can rightly affirm that this technology does not change anything in the need to face inequality, which is already justified.” for many reasons”. In short, the researcher is skeptical about the possibility of changing the opinion of politicians or the public with results like those of this study, despite their scientific merit.
María Ruz, director of the Mind, Brain and Behavior Research Center at the University of Granada, praises that the study included a large number of participants, but believes that the interpretation of the results is not easy. “That a greater or lesser cortical thickness is associated with some type of damage does not seem correct to me”, she affirms. “In the hippocampus, which they talk about in the introduction, they have seen size variation due to stress, but they don’t see the effect on the hippocampus,” she explains. “One thing that I think they do very well is make it clear that the brain is plastic and changes with sociocultural variables. But the association between brain regions and mental functions is much more complex than people imagine, ”she points out. “The areas they find have been associated with the functions they mention, but also with many others, and a greater or lesser thickness in that region of the brain is not necessarily a negative thing,” she concludes.
Despite the importance of recognizing how the brain explains human behavior, experts also warn against using seemingly objective measures of an organ—about which much is still unknown—to draw disproportionate social or political conclusions. The authors themselves point to the need for new studies, such as some that look at human groups whose levels of inequality have varied over time to begin to understand the reasons for the differences observed.
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