The Female Brain

The Female Brain
By Louann Birzendine, M.D

Two down. Eight to go.

So Andrew picked this up and suggested it to me during the last Barnes and Noble trip. I've been sort of eyeing it for a while, unable to decide if I wanted to read it or not. These psychology books have the potential to make me frustrated and angry or happy and interested, and sometimes, it is very hard to predict which will happen before you open it up. I was skeptical of this one because of the cover image, which is one of those white curly phone cords made into the shape of a brain. This suggested to me that there might be a little too much perpetuation of female stereotypes going on. But ultimately, I decided to let the degrees of the author persuade me that she might be legit (Yale Medical School tends to put out some smart people) and give it a shot.

I enjoyed it for the most part, it was fairly interesting, and I think that the author did a very good job presenting sometimes very complicated information in a way that will be approachable to the average person, which is certainly something that I aspire to someday. In each of the chapters, (which were all titled for stages in a woman's life, things like "The Mommy Brain") she introduced a patient, and fit the neurochemical and hormonal changes she was talking about into the story of what was happening in that person's life. (I am guessing since there was no little note about how names were changed or patients agreed, they might have all been composites, making it easier to fit them to her points more exactly, but that's allowed, I suppose.)

I do feel like there were a couple of glaring problems. First of all, some things were made to seem like secrets that really are not. For example, in the very beginning she had a list of "Hormones your doctor might not know about." This list included oxytocin. Now I admit that might be a hormone that the average American isn't super-familiar with (i.e. any hormone other than estrogen and testosterone), but I am very skeptical of the assertion that anyone could make it through medical school anywhere without knowing all about it. It's silly (and maybe dangerous) to make people think that just because you are doing some interesting information synthesis you have some special knowledge that their doctors might not know about, especially when it's related to things you are about to assign importance to. Sure a specialist might know more, but there isn't an OB/GYN in practice (or there shouldn't be) that can't tell you at least a little bit about oxytocin.

There's a fine line between making things approachable to the average person and oversimplification. I think that she may have stepped on the wrong side of that line a couple of times. My real pet peeve I suppose is the way that she talked about MRI research. As if, we put people in the scanner when they're in love and see what they are feeling instantly, when really it's not quite that simple (or at all easily applied to real world situations.) The stuff we have people do in the scanner is carefully structured and in reality a little more artificial than "imaging love." But she makes it seem sometimes like the MRI scanners can be used to see emotions. (Ummmm. Not quite.) I am also put off by the language that she (and many other people) used taking about results of MRI scans. "We do this or ask the person to think about this and such and such part of the brain lights up."

I know that I have been guilty of describing it that way too, but I have tried to stop ever since a kid asked me if we would be able to see the lights through his skull. People tend to take doctors literally, and sometimes it's best to tell them literally what is happening. There are no little lights in your skull people, when they say "such and such part of the cortex lights up" what they mean is "more blood flows to such and such a part of the cortex."

If we told people that way, not only would it be more true and more helpful, but also perhaps the work that we're doing might seem less mystical and a little more like science. We're measuring the flow of blood in your brain, not the intensity of mystical in head chirstmas lights. I don't think that the other way of taking about it is helpful at all.

Sorry for that little vent.

Anyway, despite the oversimplifications. I did enjoy the book. I think that I am a little bit too close to the field to fit in as a member of her target audience, but that's not really her fault. She clearly didn't set out to write a book for the academic circle. I do think that I know a member of her real target audience thought, so I left the book with my mother. She'll enjoy it more than I did.

Woot. Eight more books until my next Barnes and Noble Trip.