The hermunculus: what is known about the representation of the female body in the brain?

Abstract

The representation of the body in the brain, the homunculus, was posited by Wilder Penfield based on his studies of patients with intractable epilepsy. While he mapped both male and female patients, Penfield reports little about the females. The now iconic illustration of the map is clearly male with testicles, penis, and no breasts. In order to bring attention to this omission and to stimulate studies of female somatosensory cortex (SS), we discuss what is known about the map of the female body in the brain, including Penfield's findings in his female patients and subsequent work by others exploring the human female SS. We reveal that there is much we do not know about how the entire female body is represented in the brain or how it might change with different reproductive life stages, hormones, and experiences. Understanding what is and is not currently known about the female SS is a first step toward fully understanding neurological and physiological sex differences, as well as producing better-informed treatments for pain conditions related to mastectomy, hysterectomy, vulvodynia, and fibromyalgia. We suggest that the time is ripe for a full mapping of the female brain with the production of a hermunculus.