Transsexual Differences Caught On Brain Scan

[Paula ult]

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn20032-transsexual-differences-caught-on-brain-scan.html

Paula

[Carolyn Marie]

Very interesting, Paula. We seem to learn more every day. I wonder if the study has been peer reviewed, though. What appears in popular journals is not always scientifically sound.

Thanks!

Carolyn Marie

[JJ]

YES!

Told you so!

Thanks Paula!

Carolyn -it mentions the origin as Journal of Psychiatric Research and is also reported in ScienceDirect which I have found to be sound. Plus it confirms the other post mortem studies that have been done. Just in the last 7 months I have seen the scientific articles shifting from saying "may be" to 'is" as the evidence continues to mount without contradictory findings.

Hugs

John

[Guest Nicole163]

A very interesting read, thanks for posting!

[Guest Chiv]

Thanks for the posting this, am going to read up more on it later.

[Guest Orva26]

So it happens to both ftm and mtf? Nifty!

A 2010 study of 121 transgender people found that 38 per cent realised they had gender variance by age 5.

YAY STATS! 121 is probably not a representative sample size buuuuuuut the early knowing TS are the minority.

Guillamon thinks such scans may not help in all cases. "Research has shown that white matter matures during the first 20 to 30 years of life," he says. "People may experience early or late onset of transsexuality and we don't know what causes this difference."

Well I think I know which papers the GT I'll be seeing soon reads. And this makes a lot of sense. YAY SCIENCE! My passion and it also makes me feel better.

There is one thing I am curious about though:

To my knowledge most of these studies use individuals that have medically transitioned. What I think would be interesting would be a study of TS who don't (though it would probably be hard because I'd imagine they wouldn't get enough volunteers). Have any of these studies looked at brains of non-medically-transitioning TS been conducted?

-Orva

[Guest Robin Winter]

Am I the only one who reads stuff like this and gets ticked off that they couldn't have figure it out before it was too late for me?

[Guest Donna Jean]

Am I the only one who reads stuff like this and gets ticked off that they couldn't have figure it out before it was too late for me?

Nawwwww.....

It's not lost on me, either, Shi......

Dee Jay

[Guest DawnK]

A part of me worries that this research will eventually be used to 'cure' us of our disorders rather than a guideline for changing sexes.

dk

[JJ]

The studies I have read which were post mortum studies, used the brains of both transitioned and non transitioned people and interestingly found no difference in the brain development between the two. Both had the brain development of their perceived rather than their assigned gender.