Comments | differenceblog: How meaningful are neural correlates?

differenceblog

How meaningful are neural correlates?

Mar 07, 2007 10:09

Larry Cahill's 2006 neuroscience review points out that functional and structural differences between male and female brains may not always point to behavioral differences. One interesting example of this is Hugdahl et al (2006) study which found no sex difference in mental rotation tasks on either response time or accuracy, but did find ( Read more... )

language tasks, fmri, kenneth hugdahl, spatial abilities, performance, rozmin halari, mental rotation, gender differences, larry cahill, brains, neuroimaging, spatial tasks, sex differences, gender similarities, neuroscience, gender stereotypes, confounds, verbal tasks, gender similarity

Comments 8

astrogeek01 March 7 2007, 15:23:13 UTC

Scan! My! Brain!

dammit. no one ever wants to scan my brain.

*sulk*

differenceblog March 7 2007, 15:33:09 UTC

The three most recent responses I've gotten when volunteering for scanning studies:

"that might actaully confound our results. There are some fundamental structural differences between male brains and female brains. If your brain
was female when you were born, then specific structures in your brain wouldn't have changed even if the rest of your body has."

"At this time, you are not an age match for any of our current patients in this study, however I will put you in our database so that you are contacted for studies that you may be eligible for in the future." (I think they cut-and-pasted this, since they didn't send it until I disclosed hormone status)

"unfortunately you are not eligible for this particular study. the key here seems to be that you underwent effects on the central nervous system *by intent*."

hehe. I keep on trying.

thedeli March 7 2007, 15:25:18 UTC

You mean Norwegian undergrads don't represent humanity-at-large?
Because I've been trying desperately to recruit some. In South Louisiana.

It's not easy.

differenceblog March 7 2007, 15:33:49 UTC

Ooh, that must be hard. What are you baiting the traps with?

thedeli March 7 2007, 15:41:31 UTC

Lutefisk! What else?

differenceblog March 7 2007, 15:45:56 UTC

see, that strikes me as a problem, since it's a well known fact that consuming Lutefisk renders you invisible to MRI machines.

Thread 5

(The comment has been removed)

differenceblog March 8 2007, 03:02:02 UTC

Oh thank god. I was afraid that I was going to have to specifically grab your attention and drag you over here to tell me what went wrong with these studies.