Subject: Re: sex differences in perception of environmental sounds From: "Abbs, Brandon,Ph.D." <BABBS@xxxxxxxx> Date: Tue, 18 May 2010 10:24:36 -0400 List-Archive:<http://lists.mcgill.ca/scripts/wa.exe?LIST=AUDITORY>Hi Joanna, Just a note that an analysis with sex as a factor may be telling you more about the average effects of hormones on the organization of the brain over development than the physiological milleu during testing. I am not sure which one you are more interested in, but I would hypothesize that a preference for crying is a partially state-dependent measure (and Seifritz would seem to corroberate as one would hypothesize that parental status affects behavior over the long and short-term). Sex as a factor includes (among other things) a hypothesized difference in hormone levels, but these differences are rarely validated by measuring the hormones themselves. This is problematic because many end up sampling across ages, pregnancy status (although not in fMRI studies), points in the menstrual cycle, etc. without relating behavior to hormones. So, both positive and negative effects as a function of sex are difficult to interpret and underlying mechanisms are often underspecified or pure speculation. With respect to the amygdala, our group has found different activation at different points in the menstrual cycle to affective stimuli, although the effect is not as large as in parts of pre-frontal cortex. Seifritz is a good example of a messy sample. Their groups only matched on history of mental disorder, psychotropic medication, ans socioeconomic status. Further, some of the males and females are couples. Just a thought as you design your study, something as simple as determining where in the menstrual cycle your subjected is tested can be very helpful in understanding why you did or did not see an effect. Best, Brandon -------------------------------- Brandon Abbs, Ph.D. Postdoctoral Research Fellow Harvard Medical School Brigham and Women's Hospital 1620 Tremont Street, BC-3-34 DWH Boston, MA 02120 Phone: 617-525-8641 Fax: 617-525-7900 E-Mail: babbs@xxxxxxxx -------------------------------- -----Original Message----- From: AUDITORY - Research in Auditory Perception [mailto:AUDITORY@xxxxxxxx On Behalf Of Massimo Grassi Sent: Tuesday, May 18, 2010 1:02 AM To: AUDITORY@xxxxxxxx Subject: Re: [AUDITORY] sex differences in perception of environmental sounds > Thank you very much for sharing your knowledge with me. I am specifically > interested in physiological measures of responses to sounds like baby > crying. Seifritz E., Esposito F., Neuhoff J.G., Luthi A., Mustovic, H., Dammann, G., von Bardeleben U., Radue E.W., Cirillo, S., Tedeschi, G., Di Salle, F. (2003). Differential sex-independent amygdala response to infant crying and laughing in parents versus non-parents. Biological Psychiatry, 54, 1367 - 1375 plus, check the journal "Evolution & Human Behavior" that often publishes similar works. m The information in this e-mail is intended only for the person to whom it is addressed. If you believe this e-mail was sent to you in error and the e-mail contains patient information, please contact the Partners Compliance HelpLine at http://www.partners.org/complianceline . If the e-mail was sent to you in error but does not contain patient information, please contact the sender and properly dispose of the e-mail.