A Review of the Status of Brain Structure Research in Transsexualism.

Content Provider	Europe PMC
Author	Guillamon, Antonio Junque, Carme Gómez-Gil, Esther
Abstract	The present review focuses on the brain structure of male-to-female (MtF) and female-to-male (FtM) homosexual transsexuals before and after cross-sex hormone treatment as shown by in vivo neuroimaging techniques. Cortical thickness and diffusion tensor imaging studies suggest that the brain of MtFs presents complex mixtures of masculine, feminine, and demasculinized regions, while FtMs show feminine, masculine, and defeminized regions. Consequently, the specific brain phenotypes proposed for MtFs and FtMs differ from those of both heterosexual males and females. These phenotypes have theoretical implications for brain intersexuality, asymmetry, and body perception in transsexuals as well as for Blanchard’s hypothesis on sexual orientation in homosexual MtFs. Falling within the aegis of the neurohormonal theory of sex differences, we hypothesize that cortical differences between homosexual MtFs and FtMs and male and female controls are due to differently timed cortical thinning in different regions for each group. Cross-sex hormone studies have reported marked effects of the treatment on MtF and FtM brains. Their results are used to discuss the early postmortem histological studies of the MtF brain.
Related Links	https://europepmc.org/backend/ptpmcrender.fcgi?accid=PMC4987404&blobtype=pdf
ISSN	00040002
Journal	Archives of Sexual Behavior [Arch Sex Behav]
Volume Number	45
DOI	10.1007/s10508-016-0768-5
PubMed Central reference number	PMC4987404
Issue Number	7
PubMed reference number	27255307
e-ISSN	15732800
Language	English
Publisher	Springer US
Publisher Date	2016-06-02
Publisher Place	New York
Access Restriction	Open
Rights License	Open AccessThis article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. © The Author(s) 2016
Subject Keyword	Transsexualism Sex differences Gender identity Gender dysphoria Cross-sex hormone treatment Magnetic resonance imaging
Content Type	Text
Resource Type	Article
Subject	Arts and Humanities Psychology