And the Beat Goes On…

♫…Drum keeps pounding rhythm to the brain… ♫ La di da di dee…♫

James Cantor recently published a letter to the editor in the Archives of Sexual Behavior pointing out nearly the same point that I had made earlier, that recent MRI scans of transsexual brains show clear evidence that Blanchard’s two type hypotheses is supported.  One of the papers he referenced is one that I had earlier referenced; The Rametti study in Spain, which showed that MTF HSTS transkids have partially feminized brain structures.  The other paper is new to me; The Savic paper clearly adds yet another confirming MRI study that when combined with the Luder MRI study, shows that gynephilic MTF transsexuals do not have feminized brains.  On top of it, true to another speculative prediction that Blanchard made, the new study confirms the other paper’s finding that gynephilic (AGP) MTF transsexuals show other, non-sexually dimorphic structures, are different from both non-transsexual men and women!

These two papers both noted that the putamen of gynephilic MTF transsexual are different from both non-TS men and women.  This may be the main area to research in the future?

References:

Cantor, James, “New MRI Studies Support the Blanchard Typology of Male-to-Female Transsexualism”
http://www.springerlink.com/content/b52p04306u076623/

Rametti G, Carrillo B, Gómez-Gil E, Junque C, Zubiarre-Elorza L, Segovia S, Gomez A, Guillamon A., “The microstructure of white matter in male to female transsexuals before cross-sex hormonal treatment. A DTI study.”
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21195418

Ivanka Savic, Stefan Arver, “Sex Dimorphism of the Brain in Male-to-Female Transsexuals”
http://cercor.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2011/04/05/cercor.bhr032

Luders E, Sánchez FJ, Gaser C, Toga AW, Narr KL, Hamilton LS, Vilain E., “Regional gray matter variation in male-to-female transsexualism.”
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2754583/