Washington – Lesbians’ brains react differently to sex hormones than those of heterosexual women, new research indicates.
That’s in line with an earlier study that had indicated gay men’s brain responses were different from straight men’s – though the difference for men was more pronounced than has now been found in women.
Lesbians’ brains reacted somewhat, though not completely, like those of heterosexual men, a team of Swedish researchers said in today’s edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
A year ago, the same group reported findings for gay men that showed their brain response to hormones was similar to that of heterosexual women.
In both cases the findings add weight to the idea that homosexuality has a physical basis and is not learned behavior.
“It shows sexual orientation may very well have a different basis between men and women … this is not just a mirror-image situation,” said Sandra Witelson, an expert on brain anatomy and sexual orientation at the Michael G. DeGroote School of Medicine at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario. “The important thing is to be open to the likely situation that there are biological factors that contribute to sexual orientation.”
The research team, led by Ivanka Savic at the Stockholm Brain Institute, had volunteers sniff chemicals derived from male and female sex hormones. These chemicals are thought to be pheromones – molecules known to trigger responses such as defense and sex in many animals.
Whether humans respond to pheromones has been debated, although in 2000 U.S. researchers reported finding a gene that they believe directs a human pheromone receptor in the nose.
