Ironically, the organ with the greatest reason to differ between the sexes, the brain, is often viewed as the most androgynous of all. Are there differences? How good is the evidence? Where do the differences lie - in the neuroanatomy? In the brain's information processing? And if so, how do they differ?
Almost by convention, male animals are used in laboratory experiments in neuroscience. Even in clinical drug trials in humans, females are often excluded from the early phases of testing. The reason? The risk of pregnancy and females tend to be inconsistent in their responses due to the influence of their hormones and the menstrual cycle. The flaw in this reasoning is enormous: these very results will be applied to females.
In The Female Brain, Cynthia Darlington examines the evidence for structural and functional differences between the male and female brain in an accessible, straightforward manner, whilst at the same time providing substantial scientific material for the academic reader.