Sex differences in own and other body perception

Abstract

Own body perception, and differentiating and comparing one's body to another person's body, are common cognitive functions that have relevance for self‐identity and social interactions. In several psychiatric conditions, including anorexia nervosa, body dysmorphic disorder, gender dysphoria, and autism spectrum disorder, self and own body perception, as well as aspects of social communication are disturbed. Despite most of these conditions having skewed prevalence sex ratios, little is known about whether the neural basis of own body perception differs between the sexes. We addressed this question by investigating brain activation using functional magnetic resonance imaging during a Body Perception task in 15 male and 15 female healthy participants. Participants viewed their own body, bodies of same‐sex, or opposite‐sex other people, and rated the degree that they appeared like themselves. We found that men and women did not differ in the pattern of brain activation during own body perception compared to a scrambled control image. However, when viewing images of other bodies of same‐sex or opposite‐sex, men showed significantly stronger activations in attention‐related and reward‐related brain regions, whereas women engaged stronger activations in striatal, medial‐prefrontal, and insular cortices, when viewing the own body compared to other images of the opposite sex. It is possible that other body images, particularly of the opposite sex, may be of greater salience for men, whereas images of own bodies may be more salient for women. These observations provide tentative neurobiological correlates to why women may be more vulnerable than men to conditions involving own body perception.

Wearing same- and opposite-sex virtual bodies and seeing them caressed in intimate areas

“…While the difference between gender-potency IAT scores speaks in favor of a higher bias in men, no acrosssample differences in explicit sexist attitudes were observed. Concerning this apparent difference between men's and women's susceptibility to our body swap illusion, recent evidence suggests that sex differences in body perception processes may be relevant to understanding some of our results (35,36). While heterosexual men seem to be more sensitive to self-related information about the opposite sex's bodies, heterosexual women are particularly sensitive to their own bodies (36).…”

“…Concerning this apparent difference between men's and women's susceptibility to our body swap illusion, recent evidence suggests that sex differences in body perception processes may be relevant to understanding some of our results (35,36). While heterosexual men seem to be more sensitive to self-related information about the opposite sex's bodies, heterosexual women are particularly sensitive to their own bodies (36). Patterns of brain activation in response to information related to one's own body also differ across sexes: Women seem to engage in complex cognitive-emotional processing more often than men, with activation reported in the amygdala and prefrontal areas (37).…”

“…Thus, it may be possible that the higher emotional sensitivity to one's own body demonstrated by women-which is likely based on paying greater attention to bodily signals (such as interoceptive signals)-could interfere with the illusion of owning an opposite-sex VB or at least weaken the consequences of the body swap. Interestingly, the processing of information related to bodies of the opposite sex has been associated with the deactivation of the right temporoparietal junction (rTPJ) in women (36), a brain region that has previously been linked to perspective-taking abilities (38,39).…”

The role of sexual orientation in the relationships between body perception, body weight dissatisfaction, physical comparison, and eating psychopathology in the cisgender population

“…The evaluation of one's body image includes the concerns about body weight and shape, the perception thereof, and the ideal body appearance, linked to a specific mood, selfesteem, and cultural environment [33,34]. Differences in visual body perception have been shown between genders in heterosexual cisgender, with different brain activation linked to their own body and opposite-sex bodies, but no study is available for sexual minorities [35]. The influence of sociocultural aspects linked to body appearance could bring gay men and women to show a higher misperception of their body, but also for this aspect, few studies are available, and bisexual persons are misrepresented in the existing literature [28].…”

Increased Prevalence of Psychosocial, Behavioral, and Socio-Environmental Risk Factors among Overweight and Obese Youths in Mexico and the United States

“…A recent study investigated brain activation using functional magnetic resonance imaging during a body perception task in healthy males and females. They found that images of their own bodies were more salient for the female participants and concluded that females may be more vulnerable than males to conditions involving own body perception [55]. Youths in Mexico reported higher scores for all the “self-perception regarding weight categories”, than youths in the US.…”