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ARE MALE AND FEMALE BRAINS ACTUALLY DIFFERENT? 译者：leon921269
By now, most people have heard of the infamous Google memo, but if you haven’t, part of the author’s argument is that women are underrepresented in technical fields due to innate characteristics, rather than social forces. There are many gender stereotypes, but what does science say? Are there actually any structural differences between male and female brains?
到目前为止，大多数人都听说过那个臭名昭著的谷歌备忘录，如果没有，那我告诉你，作者的部分论点就是，女性在技术领域的表现不如男性，这取决于其本质特征，而非社会因素。除此还有很多性别的陈规旧习，但科学是怎么说的呢？男性和女性的大脑真有结构上的区别吗？
This argument is not new. Interest in the neurological gender divide dates back to at least the late nineteenth century. Measuring brains was a thing: several studies weighed the brains of a wide variety of individuals, likely with the intent of proving the inferiority of certain races or social classes. The authors of one 1906 study, for example, concluded that women’s brains were naturally smaller than men’s brains. Even in 1906, there was pushback. Rival researchers wrote that human brain size is typically proportional to body size. Women trend towards smaller bodies, with proportional brains. Inherent gender difference was shot down as a valid explanation of the study’s results.
这种说法并不新鲜。对神经系统性别分歧的兴趣至少可以追溯到19世纪晚期。测量大脑就是其中之一：好几项研究都对不同个体的大脑进行过测试，可能是为了证明某些种族或社会阶层的低劣。例如，1906年一项研究的作者得出结论，女性的大脑天生比男性的大脑要小。同样是在1906年，也出现了不同观点。意见相左研究人员写道，人的大脑体积通常与体型成正比。女性通常身材较小，大脑也相应较小。研究结果无法作出有效解释，内在性别差异因此而被否定。
No study, even those finding strong differences, has ever found differences in cognitive ability.
任何研究，即使是那些发现了巨大差异的研究，都没有发现认知能力的差异。
Fast-forward a century to the age of advanced medical imagery and…better pictures, but basically we’re still putting brains on a scale. Imaging studies from the early 2000s of male and female brains found that different parts of the brain were relatively larger or smaller (as a percentage of total brain size) in each gender. For example, males tend to have larger frontal cortexes, the area where higher thinking occurs. Contrary to stereotype, men also have larger amygdalas, where emotional stimuli are processed. There are also size differences in the hippocampus and structural differences in the temporal lobe where language is processed.
一个世纪很快过去，进入了先进医学影像和……更佳图片的时代，但基本上我们仍然把大脑局限于一定的规模中。21世纪初，男性和女性大脑的成像研究发现，无论哪个性别，大脑的不同部分都会相对较大或较小(占大脑总大小的百分比)。例如，男性通常拥有较大的额叶皮质，这是进行高级思维的区域。与那些陈规旧习相反，男人还有较大的杏仁核，这是处理情感刺激的区域。此外，海马体也有大小差异，而在处理语言的颞叶则存在结构差异。
But what do these differences actually mean? Actually, nobody can say for sure. The understanding of the brain, and exactly what the images are showing, is still in its relative infancy. Does a larger amygdala, for example, actually have any bearing on how the brain works? There’s no hard evidence that it does. Another common staple of neuroimaging studies, examining which parts of the brain “light up” in response to stimuli, are also problematic. The image is slower than the brain, so whatever is recorded by an MRI is not exactly what is happening. The lag time can cloud interpretation. There have also been problems replicating many of the studies that found structural gender differences.
但这些差异究竟意味着什么呢？实际上，没有人能肯定。对大脑的理解，以及图像到底说明什么，仍处于相对的初期阶段。例如，较大的杏仁核对大脑的工作方式到底有没有影响？没有确凿的证据能证明这一点。常见神经影像研究的另一个重要部分，即检查大脑中哪些部分对刺激有反应，也存在问题。图像比大脑要慢，因此，任何由MRI(磁共振成像)记录的东西都不一定是正在发生的事情。滞后时间可能造成解释混乱。许多发现结构性性别差异的研究中也出现了问题。
So what’s the bottom line? There may be literal differences between male and female brains, but there is no evidence whatsoever that links these differences to behavior or performance. No study, even those finding strong differences, has ever found differences in cognitive ability. If women are underrepresented in any intellectual pursuit, there is no evidence—none—of a biological reason for it. This is despite more than a century of looking.
那么最后结果是什么呢？男性和女性的大脑可能确实存在差异，但没有任何证据表明这些差异与行为或表现有关。任何研究，即使是那些发现了巨大差异的研究，都没有发现认知能力的差异。如果女性在知性探索方面的表现差强人意，也没有任何证据表明这是生物学的原因。一个多世纪的研究依然莫衷一是。
At most, different genders might use different neurological processes to solve the same problems, but reach the same result. The main utility of all these studies is possibly to more specifically target medication therapies for greatest effect.
在大多数情况下，不同的性别可能使用不同的神经过程来解决相同的问题，但结果却相同。所有这些研究的主要效用可能是更明确指出药物治疗才是最大的影响因素。
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