Gender Dysphoric Brain

Words: 1040
Pages: 5

Assignment 1: Written Summary (Part 1) and Oral Presentation (Part 2)
Hoekzema, E., Schagen, S., Kreukels, B., Veltman, D., Cohen-Kettenis, P., Delemarre-van de Waal, H. and Bakker, J. (2015). Regional volumes and spatial volumetric distribution of gray matter in the gender dysphoric brain. Psychoneuroendocrinology, 55, pp.59-71. doi:10.1093/cercor/bhr032
Gender dysphoria (GD) is defined as the continuous conflict between an individual’s biological sex and experienced gender identity. The study aimed to examine whether signs of non-gender specific cerebral programming is present in the brains of gender dysphoric adolescents, and hypothesized that individuals with GD have undergone a non-gender specific differentiation of the brain that diverges
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Using a 1.5T MRI scanner, the cortical thickness at each point in the gray matter (GM) was determined by the tissue boundaries. It was hypothesized that the cortical alterations in the MtF transsexuals were to be observed when compared to control men, excluding any other factors such as cross-sex hormones on brain structure.
Results showed thicker cortices in MtF transsexuals within the left hemisphere and the right hemisphere. With the mean increase in thickness at 3.0mm in most areas. However, there was no statically significant increase of cortical thickness in any area between MtF transsexuals and control mean.
This study provides evidence for the neuroanatomical differences, though minute, between MtF transsexuals in comparison to their control heterosexual men. However, one limitation is that the MtF group were treated as a homogenous group and their sexual orientation was not taken into consideration (i.e. preference for men or
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Specific regions of interests were observed using MRI voxel based morphometry, particularly in the cerebellum, lingual gyrus and precentral gyrus. It was hypothesized that Gender identity disorder is suggested to be the results of non-gender specific cerebral differentiation. The results showed no statically significant difference in the level of sex hormones between HeM and MtF-TR. There was a significant total brain volume in all groups of p < 0.0001, with HeW being smaller than HeW and MtF-TR; and no significant difference was found between MtF-TR and HeM (p=0.726); Smaller thalamus volume was observed in MtF-TR compared to HeM (P=0.005); again, the putman volume was smaller in MtF-TR than in both control