The Hermunculus: What Is Known about the Representation of the Female Body in the Brain?
The Hermunculus: What Is Known about the Representation of the Female Body in the Brain?
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DOI：
10.1093/cercor/bhs005
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发表时间：
2013-05-01
期刊：
影响因子：
3.7
通讯作者：
Einstein, Gillian
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Di Noto, Paula M.;Newman, Leorra;Einstein, Gillian
身体在大脑中的代表，侏儒，是由怀尔德·彭菲尔德根据他对顽固性癫痫患者的研究提出的。虽然他绘制了男性和女性患者的分布图，但彭菲尔德对女性患者几乎没有报道。现在这张地图的标志性插图显然是男性，有睾丸、阴茎，但没有乳房。为了让人们关注这一遗漏和刺激研究的女性躯体感觉皮质(SS),我们将讨论什么是了解大脑的女性身体的地图,包括潘菲尔德的发现在他的女性患者和后续工作由别人探索人类的女学生。我们显示,有许多我们不知道整个女性身体是如何在大脑中或如何改变与不同的生殖生命阶段,激素,和经验。了解女性SS目前已知的和未知的是全面了解神经和生理性别差异的第一步，也是对与乳房切除术、子宫切除术、外阴痛和纤维肌痛相关的疼痛状况进行更好的治疗的第一步。我们认为，通过产生一个hermunculus来绘制女性大脑的完整图谱的时机已经成熟。
The representation of the body in the brain, the homunculus, was posited by Wilder Penfield based on his studies of patients with intractable epilepsy. While he mapped both male and female patients, Penfield reports little about the females. The now iconic illustration of the map is clearly male with testicles, penis, and no breasts. In order to bring attention to this omission and to stimulate studies of female somatosensory cortex (SS), we discuss what is known about the map of the female body in the brain, including Penfield's findings in his female patients and subsequent work by others exploring the human female SS. We reveal that there is much we do not know about how the entire female body is represented in the brain or how it might change with different reproductive life stages, hormones, and experiences. Understanding what is and is not currently known about the female SS is a first step toward fully understanding neurological and physiological sex differences, as well as producing better-informed treatments for pain conditions related to mastectomy, hysterectomy, vulvodynia, and fibromyalgia. We suggest that the time is ripe for a full mapping of the female brain with the production of a hermunculus.