Homosexuality and Brain Structure

Homosexuality and brain structure research papers look at the biological reasons behind homosexuality. Paper Masters custom writes research on any aspect of homosexuality.

Neurobiologists have studied the structure of the brain to determine causes of sexual preference and to see if homosexual attraction can be explained by differences in the brains of homosexuals and heterosexuals. Studies again began with rats. Gorski and a team of researchers were able to show that the brain was sexually dimorphic in 1977. That is, there are structural differences between the brains of male and female rats. Gorski found the following regarding homosexuality and brain structure:

• It was possible to determine the gender of rats by looking at a section of the portion of the brain know as the hypothalamus.
• A small group of cells in the center is always bigger in male rats than in female rats. Could the same be true in humans?
• Christine de Lacoste-Utamsine, a biologist and Ralph Holloway, an anthropologist, stated in 1982 the following:
  • that the splenium, a section of the corpus callosum exhibited sexual dimorphism.
  • The corpus callosum is the part of the brain that connects both hemispheres. The splenium was smaller in men than in women.

Neurological Studies and Homosexuality

This is a well-know neurological study. However, not everyone who has duplicated the study has duplicated the results, although Laura Allen achieved similar results in 1991. Dick Swaab showed 1985 that brain differences existed in humans similar to the ones observed by Gorski's team in rats. In 1990, Swaab published work that concluded that sexual dimorphism existed in the suprachiasmatic nucleus portion of the brain, but that the dimorphism was with regard to sexual preference instead of gender. The suprachiasmatic nucleus, according to Swaab, is smaller in heterosexual men than in homosexual men.