TS Brains
Differences in the brain’s white matter that clash with a person’s genetic sexBiological attributes and legal categories used to classify humans as male, female, intersex or other categories, primarily associated with physical and physiological features including chromosomes, genetic expression, hormone levels and function, and reproductive/sexual anatomy. may hold the key to identifying transsexualThis is typically used to describe people who identify as transgender who are transitioning toward the gender with which they identify. This may include socially presenting (e.g., clothing, hair, mannerisms, overall gender expression) as the gender with which they identify, or it may include more extensive changes like taking hormones and/or surgical procedures to modify their body. people before puberty. Doctors could use this information to make a case for delaying puberty to improve the success of a sexBiological attributes and legal categories used to classify humans as male, female, intersex or other categories, primarily associated with physical and physiological features including chromosomes, genetic expression, hormone levels and function, and reproductive/sexual anatomy. change later.
Medics are keen to find concrete physical evidence to help those children who feel they are trapped in the body of the opposite sexBiological attributes and legal categories used to classify humans as male, female, intersex or other categories, primarily associated with physical and physiological features including chromosomes, genetic expression, hormone levels and function, and reproductive/sexual anatomy.. One key brain region involved is the BSTc, an area of grey matter. But the region is too small to scan in a living person so differences have only been picked up at post-mortem.
Antonio Guillamon’s team at the National University of Distance Education in Madrid, Spain, think they have found a better way to spot a transsexualThis is typically used to describe people who identify as transgender who are transitioning toward the gender with which they identify. This may include socially presenting (e.g., clothing, hair, mannerisms, overall gender expression) as the gender with which they identify, or it may include more extensive changes like taking hormones and/or surgical procedures to modify their body. brain. In a study due to be published next month, the team ran MRI scans on the brains of 18 female-to-male transsexualThis is typically used to describe people who identify as transgender who are transitioning toward the gender with which they identify. This may include socially presenting (e.g., clothing, hair, mannerisms, overall gender expression) as the gender with which they identify, or it may include more extensive changes like taking hormones and/or surgical procedures to modify their body. people who’d had no treatment and compared them with those of 24 males and 19 females.
They found significant differences between maleA sex, usually assigned at birth, and based on chromosomes (e.g. XY), gene expression, hormone levels and function, and reproductive/sexual anatomy (e.g. penis, testicles). and femaleA sex, usually assigned at birth, and based on chromosomes (e.g. XX), gene expression, hormone levels and function, and reproductive/sexual anatomy (e.g. vagina, uterus). brains in four regions of white matter – and the female-to-male transsexualThis is typically used to describe people who identify as transgender who are transitioning toward the gender with which they identify. This may include socially presenting (e.g., clothing, hair, mannerisms, overall gender expression) as the gender with which they identify, or it may include more extensive changes like taking hormones and/or surgical procedures to modify their body. people had white matter in these regions that resembled a maleA sex, usually assigned at birth, and based on chromosomes (e.g. XY), gene expression, hormone levels and function, and reproductive/sexual anatomy (e.g. penis, testicles). brain (Journal of Psychiatric Research, DOI: 10.1016/j.jpsychires.2010.05.006). “It’s the first time it has been shown that the brains of female-to-male transsexualThis is typically used to describe people who identify as transgender who are transitioning toward the gender with which they identify. This may include socially presenting (e.g., clothing, hair, mannerisms, overall gender expression) as the gender with which they identify, or it may include more extensive changes like taking hormones and/or surgical procedures to modify their body. people are masculinised,” Guillamon says.
In a separate study, the team used the same technique to compare white matter in 18 male-to-female transsexualThis is typically used to describe people who identify as transgender who are transitioning toward the gender with which they identify. This may include socially presenting (e.g., clothing, hair, mannerisms, overall gender expression) as the gender with which they identify, or it may include more extensive changes like taking hormones and/or surgical procedures to modify their body. people with that in 19 males and 19 females. Surprisingly, in each transsexualThis is typically used to describe people who identify as transgender who are transitioning toward the gender with which they identify. This may include socially presenting (e.g., clothing, hair, mannerisms, overall gender expression) as the gender with which they identify, or it may include more extensive changes like taking hormones and/or surgical procedures to modify their body. person’s brain the structure of the white matter in the four regions was halfway between that of the males and females (Journal of Psychiatric Research, DOI: 10.1016/j.jpsychires.2010.11.007). “Their brains are not completely masculinised and not completely feminised, but they still feel femaleA sex, usually assigned at birth, and based on chromosomes (e.g. XX), gene expression, hormone levels and function, and reproductive/sexual anatomy (e.g. vagina, uterus).,” says Guillamon.
Guillamon isn’t sure whether the four regions are at all associated with notions of gender• However gender is far more complicated. It is the complex interrelationship between an individual’s sex (gender biology), one’s internal sense of self as male, female, both or neither (gender identity) as well as one’s outward presentations and behaviours (gender expression) related to that perception, including their gender role. Together, the intersection of these three dimensions produces one’s authentic sense of gender, both in how people experience their own gender as well as how others perceive it.
• Gender is expressed in terms of masculinity and femininity. It is largely culturally determined and is assigned at birth based on the sex of the individual. It affects how people perceive themselves and how they expect others to behave.
• Socially and culturally constructed roles, behaviours, expressions and identities of girls, women, boys, men, and trans people.
, but Ivanka Savic-Berglund at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden, thinks they might be. One of the four regions – the superior longitudinal fascicle – is particularly interesting, she says. “It connects the parietal lobe [involved in sensory processing] and frontal lobe [involved in planning movement] and may have implications in body perception.”
A 2010 study of 121 transgender people found that 38% realised they had gender varianceA persons feelings about his or her gender identity that do not conform to the stereotypical boy/man or girl/woman category as assigned at birth. This variance is increasingly understood to derive from sex differentiation in the structure and working of the brain, which may be inconsistent with the other physical sex characteristics. by age 5. White matter differences could provide independent confirmation that such children might benefit from treatment to delay puberty.
A study by Sean Deoni’s team at King’s College London suggests it may soon be possible to look for these differences in such children. Deoni’s team adapted an MRI scanner to be as quiet as possible so it could be used to monitor the development of white matter in sleeping infants. Using new image analysis software they could track when and where myelin – the neuron covering that makes white matter white – was laid down (Journal of Neuroscience, vol 31, p 784). Although the sample was too small to identify any gender• However gender is far more complicated. It is the complex interrelationship between an individual’s sex (gender biology), one’s internal sense of self as male, female, both or neither (gender identity) as well as one’s outward presentations and behaviours (gender expression) related to that perception, including their gender role. Together, the intersection of these three dimensions produces one’s authentic sense of gender, both in how people experience their own gender as well as how others perceive it.
• Gender is expressed in terms of masculinity and femininity. It is largely culturally determined and is assigned at birth based on the sex of the individual. It affects how people perceive themselves and how they expect others to behave.
• Socially and culturally constructed roles, behaviours, expressions and identities of girls, women, boys, men, and trans people.
differences in development, Deoni expects to see differences developing in the brain “by 2 or 3 years of age”.
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.”
Author – Jessica Hamzelou
Original posting date – 26 January 2011
Source – https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn20032-transsexual-differences-caught-on-brain-scan/