An unwavering advocate for diversity, equity, and inclusion, Dr. Georgina (Gina) Rippon is a Cognitive Neuroscientist and is currently an emeritus professor of cognitive neuroimaging at the Aston Brain Centre in Birmingham, UK. In her interview Neuroscience of Gender, on the video series Reason with Science, she debunks myths about gender-related differences in the field of neuroscience, highlights the advances in neuroimaging techniques, and talks about a need for diversity, not just in STEM but in society at large.
“I was always really interested in brains for some reason,” Rippon says. Her earliest investigations in neuroscience involved cutting off the heads of her teddy bears to see if they had brains. To pursue this interest, she initially considered Medicine but found Physiological psychology to be a better fit. “I realized I wasn’t necessarily interested in the brain itself but in what the brain did and how it made people behave differently.”
In her 2019 book, The Gendered Brain, Rippon rationalizes how ‘a gendered society gives rise to a gendered brain’. The impact of societal gender norms on human behavior can be observed from the early stages of development, for instance, gender-typed toy preferences in children. ‘The social brain hypothesis’ theory also suggests that gendered behavior in primates is an outcome of the social cues they receive and process. According to Rippon, the brains of males have been considered superior to the brains of females for centuries, but no meaningful difference in brain anatomy, network, or development has been established between the sexes to justify this notion.
‘Eight Things You Need to Know About Sex, Gender, Brains and Behavior’ by Rippon and colleagues, is a guide for those who want to better understand this highly-contested area of neuroscience research. It is important to note that sex differences in some neurological and psychiatric diseases have been observed. Several studies have suggested minor differences in the connectivity between male and female brains which might manifest in detectable cognitive differences in humans as early as three months old. New technologies like Machine Learning are being used to analyze data from scans of tens of thousands of brains to pick apart tiny differences in the brains of males and females. However, the differences, if any, are not extensive.
According to Rippon, Neurosexism, or the belief in fixed and inevitable differences between male and female brains is often publicized, not only by the media but also by many scientists. “A [non-expert] can quickly look at PubMed or Google Scholar and say look at the thousands of [scientific] papers which report [sex-differences in the brain], not paying attention to the fact that a much greater proportion of comparisons have demonstrated similarity, or that no consistent difference in any brain characteristics in humans has yet been identified,” she says. Rippon discusses that often a small proportion of “statistically significant” differences are highlighted in scientific papers which a non-expert in the field or a journalist can easily misinterpret, inflate, and disseminate.
One such myth is that men are more intelligent because they have bigger brains. Rippon explains that closer scrutiny has revealed that it is a scaling issue and has no correlation with intellectual competence whatsoever. As male bodies are eight to ten percent bigger in size than females, so are their brains.
Another misconception is about hormone-driven behaviors like maternal aggression or nest-defense. These behaviors are observed in female animals when protecting their young ones against threats. Rippon has frequently been challenged by citing such cases. According to her, both biological and societal cues lead to sex-specific differences in the brain and attributing too much causality to just biology alone is misleading. She explains that “Hormones are not just biological drivers; they interact powerfully with the social context.” In fact, recent studies have found that fathers who are primary caregivers have lower levels of testosterone compared to other men, suggesting that the human brain and the endocrine system is strongly affected by social circumstances.
Rippon explains that the ‘hunt for difference’ agenda has plagued the field of cognitive neuroscience for several decades, and she strongly denies that she is a ‘sex-difference denier’. At a conference session organized by Universitat de Barcelona, she had rightly stated that “Brains reflect the lives they have lived, not just the sex of their owner.”
The human desire to understand the connection between the brain and behavior has resulted in many pseudoscientific practices in the past. In the early days, skull shapes were frequently linked to one’s mental abilities and had validated many prevailing societal biases of the time. With the advent of neuroimaging technology, such myths about the human brain have been discredited and debunked. Now intricate structures of the brain can be visualized by Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI), and brain function can be studied using Electroencephalography (EEG) and Magnetoencephalography (MEG) that record the electrical activities and magnetic fields of the brain. But brain imaging really took off with the deployment of a more advanced technology called functional MRI (fMRI).
fMRI allows scientists to connect neural activities with blood flow changes in the brain. Color coding these changes in the brain can result in an intricately detailed image. When fMRI was launched, scientists thought of it as a ‘direct window into the real-time activity of the brain’. But Rippon cautions that the first impression was not entirely accurate, and we are not quite there yet. “Networks [in the brain] constantly form and dissolve over millisecond time windows…so the brain solves problems in a hugely dynamic fashion,” Rippon says.
“We have amazingly detailed techniques of looking at structures in the brain and we are starting to characterize what the brain is doing, but we still have to correlate it with behavior.”
Neuroplasticity is another important factor to consider while trying to uncover the brain-behavior connection. We now know that brain flexibility or remolding is a characteristic of adult brains as well as those of children. Our brain rewires and reorganizes itself as we learn to drive, play an instrument, or even play video games. “Children love it when I go and give talks in schools and say how important video games are, as they can offer powerful training opportunities for specific skills – their teachers are less enthralled.” Rippon quips. This ever-changing nature of our brain makes it more challenging to completely understand and simplify complex human behaviors.
Growing up, Rippon observed that the emphasis on scientific education was greater for boys than for girls, and women were not encouraged to pursue a career in science. Yet, Rippon went against the tide, persevered, and carved out a successful scientific career. Though more women are now a part of the STEM workforce, representation greatly varies across fields.
“[Nowadays, in the countries with smallest gender gaps] the argument is that the playing field has been leveled and women are not doing science,” she says. “My argument is if you really look at science there is no evidence that it’s a level playing field for women.”
The ‘Future of Science’, Rippon cautions, will likely be shaped by advances in the fields of Robotics and Artificial Intelligence (AI). Biases in existing facial recognition technology are alarming and have received a lot of public attention in recent times. The Bias in AI UK Network, of which Rippon is a member, works towards the reduction of bias in AI products and services.
“The proportion of women in [Robotics and AI] is vanishingly small, and the world is building its future on the basis of input from only fifty percent of its population,” she says. “Let alone the male-female, we have got people of ethnic minorities, disabilities, neurodiverse individuals, and people of different sexual orientations, every one of whom experiences the world differently and really need to be inputting into these future developments.”
Her idea of feminism is, “not that everybody is the same, but that everybody should be given equal access to the opportunities that the world has to offer.”
Rippon considers herself a feminist and her idea of feminism is “not that everybody is the same, but that everybody should be given equal access to the opportunities that the world has to offer.” She champions for diversity and inclusivity in science and society, but at the same time recognizes that changing the status quo can be challenging. These deeply ingrained biases are difficult to overcome even in the 21stcentury, as Rippon points out “when you are accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression.”
The complete video of this interview is available on the YouTube channel of our media partner, ‘Reason with Science’. It is a series of conversations with scientists discussing the importance of science in society. You can listen to the full conversation with Dr. Rippon here:
Author
Sneha Das is pursuing her Ph.D. in Microbiology from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She fell in love with the microbial world during her undergraduate education at St. Xavier’s College, Kolkata. Her current research focuses on understanding DNA damage and repair in bacteria using genetic tools. Sneha discovered her passion for science communication as a teaching assistant for undergraduate Molecular Biology and Microbiology courses. Since then, she has talked about different scientific topics to the general audience as a part of science communication outreach programs. In her free time, she enjoys writing, traveling, exploring nature, and meeting new people.
Editors
Sumbul Jawed Khan is the Assistant Editor-in-Chief at Club SciWri. She received her Ph. D. from the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, where she studied the role of the microenvironment in cancer progression and tumor formation. During her post-doctoral research at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, she investigated the gene regulatory networks important for tissue regeneration. She is committed to science outreach activities and believes it is essential to inspire young people to apply scientific methods to tackle the challenges faced by humanity. As an editor, she aims to simplify, translate, and excite people about current advances in science.
Saurja Dasguptais originally from Kolkata, India. He obtained his Ph.D. at the University of Chicago, where he studied the structure, function, and evolution of catalytic RNA. He is currently doing his postdoctoral research at Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, where he is trying to understand the biochemical milieu that could have given birth to life on earth (and elsewhere) and reconstruct primitive cells. One of his scientific dreams is to observe the spontaneous emergence of Darwinian evolution in a chemical system. When not thinking about science, Saurja pursues his love for the written word through poetry and song-writing (and meditating on Leonard Cohen’s music). His other passions are trying to make science easier to understand, and fighting unreason and pseudoscientific thinking with a mixture of calm compassion and swashbuckling spirit.
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