2024-02-27 10:30:08
FABRICE MONTIGNIER
This is a flammable subject, so approach it with a grain of salt. A team of researchers from Stanford University (California) chose to look at the brain by asking the question of possible differences between men and women. They found some. Their study, published in the journal PNAS of February 20, will not fail to provoke a reaction.
There was a time, not so long ago, when established researchers claimed that men were superior to women because the volume of their brain was superior. Until we understand that the volume of the skull is proportional to the size of the body… However, a man measuring 1.95 meters is not more intelligent than another just because he measures 20 centimeters moreover. QED.
This time, researchers from the University of California’s Departments of Behavioral Sciences, Neuroscience and Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence didn’t take such a crude approach. Exit morphological comparisons! They were interested in the functional organization of our gray matter, not in the shape or size of its different parts. Their conclusion is explicit: “Our study provides compelling evidence for the existence of reproducible and generalizable sex differences in the functional organization of the human brain. » According to the authors, “These brain features predict unique cognitive profiles in women and men, demonstrating their behavioral importance”.
Differences identified
How did they arrive at such claims? Their basic material consisted of functional MRI scans (fMRI) of some 1,500 individuals of both sexes aged 20 to 35 years. This imaging technique, allowing indirect visualization of brain activity, was used on the default mode network, in other words the regions active when we are doing nothing and our attention is not required. “This is what the brain does when the mind wanders between associations of ideas and memories, for example. This activity at rest is the signature of our brain”explains Sylvie Chokron, research director at the CNRS and the Psychology of Perception laboratory (Paris-Descartes University), regular contributor to the Monde.
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To study this material, the American team developed a spatio-temporal deep neural network (stDNN) model that it describes as explainable artificial intelligence (AI), as opposed to the black boxes that constitute some AI. Trained on around a thousand cases, this artificial intelligence was then compared to other fMRIs. Result ? In more than 90% of cases, the model was able to distinguish the brains of men from those of women. The differences identified in several areas of the brain (default mode network, striatum, limbic network, orbitofrontal cortex) were sufficiently precise to make it a reliable classification tool.
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