Brain Sex Theory

• • prenatal hormones in the womb can cause the BSTc to vary in size
  • its 40% larger in males than females
  • imbalances in hormone levels can cause males to have a female sized BSTc and vice versa
• The BSTc is important in sexual and emotional behaviour
• Strengths

  • Zhuo - post-mortems on 6 individuals (male -> females), found on average they had female volume and sized BSTcs
  • Follow up study - on the same individuals - looked at neuron density (similar on average to females)
• Limitation - very small, unique sample

  • not representative of the general population - findings are difficult to generalise