Quote:Professor Gina Rippon is Emeritus Professor of Cognitive Neuroimaging at the Aston Brain Centre, Birmingham.

Her research involves state-of-the-art brain imaging techniques to investigate how the brain interacts with its world, and what happens when this process goes wrong.

She is an outspoken critic of 'neurotrash', the populist (mis)use of neuroscience research to (mis)represent our understanding of the brain and, most particularly, to prop up outdated gender stereotypes.

In her new book 'The Gendered Brain' (Bodley Head - UK edition),'Gender and our Brains' (US edition),she challenges the idea that there are two sorts of 'hardwired' brains, male and female, and offers a 21st century model for a better understanding of how brains get to be different.