Brizendine, Louann 1952-

views updated

Brizendine, Louann 1952-

PERSONAL:

Born 1952, in Hazard, KY; daughter of Protestant missionaries and civil rights activists; married; children: one son. Education: University of California, Berkeley, B.A., 1976; Yale School of Medicine, M.D., 1981; Harvard Medical School, residency in psychiatry, 1982-85.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Sausalito, CA. Office—University of California, San Francisco, Box 0984, 401 Parnassus Ave., LangPorter 274, San Francisco, CA 94143-0984. E-mail—[email protected]; [email protected].

CAREER:

Writer, researcher, neurobiologist, neuropsychiatrist, physician, lecturer, consultant, and educator. Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, member of faculty, 1985-88; University of California, San Francisco, Langley Porter Psychiatric Institute, researcher, instructor, clinician, and member of faculty, 1988—, Women's Mood and Hormone Clinic, founder and director, 1994—. Frequent lecturer and consultant on female hormonal and health issues.

WRITINGS:

The Female Brain, Morgan Road Books (New York, NY), 2006.

Author's works have been translated into twenty-one languages.

SIDELIGHTS:

Author Louann Brizendine is a neuropsychiatrist, researcher, consultant, and educator on matters related to brain science and hormonal function. As a physician, she specializes in the treatment of women with mood and hormone disorders at the Women's Mood and Hormone Clinic at the University of California, San Francisco, which Brizendine founded in 1994. Her clinical work stresses as- sessment and treatment of women experiencing "disruption of mood, concentration, energy, anxiety, sexual function, and well-being," as related to the effect of hormones on the brain, noted a biographer on Brizendine's home page. She is a researcher in medical issues associated with hormonal influences on the brain, particularly the effects of hormones on mood, thinking, self-esteem, sleep, and memory. She regularly supervises medical residents, fellows, and medical students who are interested in this expanding area of women's health. She frequently teaches, writes, and lectures on these and related topics, and is an "expert on the effects of testosterone on sex drive in both pre-menopausal and postmenopausal women," noted a biographer on the University of California, San Francisco Web site.

In her book, The Female Brain, Brizendine offers a much deeper analysis of the hormonal, physiological, and neurobiological function of the female brain. At the heart of her study is the concept that male brains and female brains function differently, a controversial idea that some critics have claimed reinforces gender stereotypes that have been disputed for years. Brizendine readily acknowledges the controversy, but maintains that in addition to some fundamental physiological differences, female brains are also susceptible to the effects of fluctuating levels of hormones in women's bodies. Brizendine believes that these anatomical and hormonal differences are biologically adaptive traits that evolved to help women "protect themselves against threatening situations, develop relationships, find mates, and rear children," noted a Science News reviewer. In the book, she relates other facts about male and female brains. For example, she states that all human brains begin as female brains, until the developing male fetus begins to generate testosterone, which causes the physiological changes that create a male brain. Among the changes that occur are a shrinking of the brain's communication center, a reduction of the hearing center, and a doubling of the size of the brain center that deals with sex. These differences, she asserts, help explain why women are more communicative than men, why women are less concerned with sex than men, and why women are more emotionally intuitive than men. For women, Brizendine says, communication is the key to their relationships and interaction with other women; in fact, such communication triggers the secretion of the hormone oxytocin, which gives women even deeper pleasure than an orgasm. In the end, Brizendine does not claim superiority for either the male or female brain, but she encourages her readers to be conscious of the differences and how the knowledge can lead to deeper personal relationships, more effective communication, and greater opportunities.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, August 1, 2006, Donna Chavez, review of The Female Brain, p. 22.

Choice: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries, January, 2007, P. Lefler, review of The Female Brain, p. 853.

Nature, October 12, 2006, Rebecca M. Young, "Psychoneuroindoctrinology," review of The Female Brain, p. 634.

Newsweek, July 31, 2006, Peg Tyre and Julie Scelfo, "Why Girls Will Be Girls; In a Controversial New Book, This Psychiatrist Argues That Differences between Men and Women Start with Their Brains," review of The Female Brain, p. 46.

New York Times Book Review, September 10, 2006, Robin Marantz Henig, "How Women Think," review of The Female Brain, p. 12.

New York Times Magazine, December 10, 2006, Deborah Solomon, "He Thought, She Thought," interview with Louann Brizendine, p. 22.

New Zealand Management, September, 2006, "It's All in the Brain," review of The Female Brain, p. 64.

San Francisco Chronicle, August 6, 2006, Joe Garofoli, "Femme Mentale," review of The Female Brain, p. A-1.

Science Books & Films, January 1, 2007, Nancy A. Ridenour, review of The Female Brain, p. 25.

Science News, August 12, 2006, review of The Female Brain, p. 111.

SciTech Book News, September, 2006, review of The Female Brain.

USA Today, August 22, 2006, Elizabeth Weise, "Men, Women: Maybe We Are Different …," review of The Female Brain, p. 09D.

Washington Post Book World, August 20, 2006, Deborah Tannen, "A Brain of One's Own," review of The Female Brain, p. 1.

Women's Studies, January-February, 2007, Tabitha Steffe, review of The Female Brain, p. 48.

ONLINE

Inkling Magazine,http://www.inklingmagazine.com/ (June 13, 2007), Sandra Kiume, "Louann Brizend- ine's book The Female Brain Frankly Pisses Sandra Kiume Off. Here's Why," review of The Female Brain.

Language Log,http://itre.cis.upenn.edu~myl/languagelog/ (August 6, 2002), Mark Liberman, "Neuroscience in the Service of Sexual Stereotypes," review of The Female Brain.

Louann Brizendine Home Page,http://www.louannbrizendine.com (November 27, 2007).

Random House Web site,http://www.randomhouse.com/ (November 27, 2007), biography of Louanne Brizendine.

University of California, San Francisco Web site,http://www.ucsf.edu/ (November 27, 2007), curriculum vitae of Louann Brizendine.