Mechanisms of entanglement: how a gendered world makes a gendered brain

Contemporary understanding of key neural processes has advanced the study of the dynamic, iterative influences between the brain and external events, contributing to a growing evidence base concerning the entanglement between human brain structure and function and socio-cultural contextual factors, with consequent behavioural implications. This is particularly relevant to any understanding of differences in apparently sex-linked human behavioural phenotypes and the role of external factors in producing such differences. Relevant insights are provided not only by the relatively well-established concept of experience-based neuroplasticity, but also by research into the brain-changing effects of social context, which can include gendered attitudes and expectations. The developing study of the socially embedded brain offers a powerful organising framework to inform both methodological and theoretical approaches to an understanding of the brain-based mechanisms of biology/society interactions. Additionally, the emerging application of models of predictive coding processes in the brain to human social behaviour potentially offers wide-ranging insights into the role of rule-based, socio-culturally determined, lived experiences in shaping brain development and function and tracking . This paper aims to demonstrate how this framework could be harnessed in neuroscience research into the dynamic entanglement between sex-related brain processes and social contextual influences such as gender.