مجلة العلوم الانسانية
Volume 8, Numéro 15, Pages 7-25
2008-10-06

Chronobiological And Neuropsychological Bases Of Gender Versus Sex Differences In Response To Stress And Pain

Authors : Belloum Mohamed .

Abstract

Most studies of the psychological &/or physiological bases of stress responses do not often distinguish between gender-dependent reactions to stressors and sex-dependent reactions to these stressors; only very few recent studies make the distinction, and even fewer base this distinction on neuropsychological and/or chronobiological grounds . The aim of this paper is to shed some light on the neuropsychological bases of gender differences in response to stress and pain, as intermingled with various and complex chronobiological factors, and as fundamentally distinct from sex differences in response to stress and pain; this, as far as there is mounting experimental evidence of a sexual dimorphism in the anatomy and physiology of the main higher brain circuits responsible for stress and pain (mainly limbic circuits as opposed to hypothalamic and other lower brain circuits).

Keywords

stress responses ;