The 'Extreme Female Brain' : Increased Cognitive Empathy as a Dimension of Psychopathology

Baron-Cohen's ‛extreme male brain’ theory postulates that autism involves exaggerated male-typical psychology, with reduced empathizing (considered here as social–emotional interest, motivation and abilities) and increased systemizing (non-social, physical-world and rule-based interest, motivation and abilities), in association with its male-biased sex ratio. The concept of an ‘extreme female brain’, involving some combination of increased empathizing and reduced systemizing, and its possible role in psychiatric conditions, has been considerably less well investigated. Female-biased sex ratios have been described in two conditions, depression and borderline personality disorder (BPD), that …