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Some years ago, I heard Doctor 
Daphne Yoel, a professor of 

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psychology and neuroscience at 
Tel Aviv University, speak. 

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When she visited Stanford, she 
spoke about her research using 

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functional MRI's to identify 
areas of the brain that differ 

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between men and women. 
That was interesting, but then 

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it got controversial when she 
went in search of men who 

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exhibited all male traits and 
women who exhibited all female 

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traits. 
There weren't many. 

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I found Doctor Yoel's research 
quite liberating. 

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It moves us past the stereotypes
that we should all fit in only 

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one of two boxes, male or 
female, and if we don't, we are 

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somehow deviant. 
Her discoveries have profound 

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implications for how we view 
sexuality and gender. 

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This modern retelling of ancient
scripture came to mind when I 

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was preparing this podcast. 
You are fearfully and 

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wonderfully made a multi colored
mosaic. 

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Let me know what you think. 
Here to explain her research is 

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our dynamic duo from Notebook 
LM. 

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My apologies for their 
mispronunciations of Doctor 

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Yoel's name. 
It's spelled Joel Joel and they 

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just can't quite cope with the 
Hebrew pronunciation. 

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Enjoy. 
Do drop me a line. 

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So if I handed you like 1400 MRI
brain scans, do you think you 

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could separate them into a male 
pile and a female pile? 

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I mean, for decades biology told
us that the answer was an 

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absolute yes. 
Right. 

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Exactly. 
But our stack of sources today, 

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which includes neuroscientist 
Daphne Jewel's 2015 MRI study 

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and also some really fascinating
rat behavioral research, says 

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that's basically a total myth. 
Yeah, it completely upends that 

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whole idea. 
It really does. 

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So welcome to today's Deep Dive.
You are joining us as the third 

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person in this conversation 
while we explore Joel's mosaic 

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brain theory and, you know, 
really look at the liberating 

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implications all this has for 
the queer community. 

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So to start, the traditional 
rigid idea was that in utero 

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exposure to testosterone 
permanently masculinizes a brain

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away from what was considered a 
default female form. 

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But Joel and her team actually 
put this to the test. 

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They analyzed this 1400 brain 
scans looking for what they 

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called internal consistency. 
Like if a brain has a male 

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typical structure in one area, 
does it reliably have male 

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typical structures everywhere 
else? 

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OK, so like if I have a male 
typical amygdala, which is the 

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region that processes fear, 
right? 

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Do I automatically have a male 
typical hippocampus for memory? 

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Exactly, and the results were 
pretty staggering. 

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Out of all those brains, only 
zero to 8% were internally 

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consistent. 
Wait. 

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Zero to 8%, that's almost 
nothing. 

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Yeah, almost nobody has a 
strictly male or strictly female

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brain. 
It's just not a thing. 

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So instead of humans coming with
two distinct operating systems, 

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you know, like Mac versus 
Windows, the brain is more like 

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this massive audio mixing board.
I love that analogy. 

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Yeah, giant audio mixing board. 
Right, where everyone has the 

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same thousands of sliders, but 
your specific sliders are set to

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completely unique levels. 
Yes, and crucially, those levels

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don't align perfectly to one 
sex. 

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I mean, you might have the fear 
slider set to a statistically 

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male average, but then your 
memory slider is set to a female

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average. 
OK, but you listening or 

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probably thinking, wait, if 
there's no set male or female 

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brain, how do critics explain 
the algorithms? 

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Because the sources note that 
critics like Check Route and Del

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Giudice, they fed whole brain 
MRI data into machine learning 

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models. 
Yeah, they did. 

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And those computers could 
actually predict a person's 

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biological sex with like 73 to 
93% accuracy. 

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So how is a computer guessing 
right that often if it's all 

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just a unique mixing board? 
Well, it really comes down to 

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what the algorithm is actually 
doing. 

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It isn't finding a single 
universal male blueprint. 

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Oh, OK, So what is it finding? 
It's looking at thousands of 

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microscopic variables across the
brain and just aggregating them 

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to find a multivariate 
statistical pattern. 

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I see. 
So the algorithm is basically 

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looking at the sum total of tiny
details to make an educated 

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guess, rather than like 
recognizing A distinct category.

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Precisely. 
Yeah, sex from a broad 

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statistical likelihood is not 
the same thing as proving there 

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are two distinct cognitive types
of humans. 

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The individual overlap is just 
way too extensive. 

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Right, so you can predict 
someone's sex, but you 

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absolutely cannot predict their 
unique cognitive setup just from

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knowing their sex. 
Exactly. 

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OK, so if the physical structure
of the brain is this unique 

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mosaic, is that set up like set 
in stone at birth? 

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Not at all, actually. 
And the rat behavioral research 

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in our sources illustrates this 
so beautifully. 

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They looked at dendritic spines.
Oh, those are the tiny branch 

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like structures that connect 
neurons to each other. 

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Yeah, Yep, those are the ones in
a specific region of the brain. 

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Male rats typically have a 
sparse network of these spines, 

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while females have a highly 
dense network. 

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And this is where it gets wild. 
The researchers introduced 

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stress. 
They exposed a male rat to just 

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15 minutes of acute stress, 
which is basically, you know, 

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the length of a bad commute. 
Yeah, and the physical structure

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of that male rat's brain cells 
actually altered into the dense 

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female form. 
Wow. 

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What happens is that the sudden 
spike in stress hormones like 

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cortisol triggers this rapid 
biological reorganization in the

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brain. 
Just 15 minutes of cortisol 

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completely reshapes the physical
connections. 

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That is incredible. 
It really proves our brains are 

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incredibly plastic. 
I mean, the mosaic is constantly

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physically adapting to our 
environment, our experiences and

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our hormone fluctuations. 
So when you apply that to 

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identity and orientation, Joel's
research intersects so 

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powerfully with the queer 
community. 

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Really does, because 
historically, psychology relied 

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on the flawed assumption that, 
say, a gay man must have a 

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female brain or a lesbian has a 
male brain. 

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Right, like those were the only.
Options, exactly. 

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But Joel's work dismantles that 
entirely because the baseline 

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female brain doesn't actually 
exist. 

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The whole heterosexual 
homosexual binary is just as 

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artificial as the male female 
brain binary. 

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Yeah, and for queer individuals,
or honestly, anyone who doesn't 

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perfectly fit society's rigid 
boxes, that is a profound take 

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away. 
Your variation isn't a deviation

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from the norm. 
Variation literally is the 

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biological norm. 
Yeah, we simply aren't wired to 

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fit into just two categories. 
The data tells us that human 

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brains do not inherently have a 
binary sex. 

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They are a complex, ever 
shifting mosaic of traits shaped

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by both biology and experience. 
Absolutely. 

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Which leaves us with one final 
thing to ponder. 

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We just talked about how a mere 
15 minutes of stress hormones 

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can physically alter the 
so-called gendered structure of 

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a rat's brain. 15 minutes. 
Right. 

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So if our brains are that 
incredibly sensitive to the 

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world around us, how much of 
your own innate behavior is 

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really just your brain's 
physical adaptation to a 

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lifetime of society's gender 
expectations? 

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This is Elton Sherwin, thanks 
for making this podcast part of 

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your day. 
Please subscribe and recommend 

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us to your friends and family. 
Join us next time. 

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Meanwhile, stay safe and stay 
healthy.