Homosexuality and Brain Structure Research Papers
Neurobiologists have studied the structure of the brain to find out causes of sexual orientation and to see whether it is possible to explain homosexual attraction by discrepancies in the brains of homosexuals and heterosexuals. Their experimental studies began with rats. In 1977 it was proven by Gorski and a team of researchers that the brain was sexually dimorphic, that is, the brains of male and female rats differ. It was discovered by Gorski that the gender of rats can be determined by looking at the hypothalamus. Female rats always have smaller group of cells in the center. It was found out by two scientists, Christine de Lacoste-Utamsinet and Ralph Holloway, in 1982 that sexual dimorphism is exhibited by the splenium, a section of the corpus callosum. The latter is the part of the brain that links both hemispheres. The splenium appeared to be bigger in women than in men. However, not all researchers who have done a similar study have the same results. It was proven by Dick Swaab in 1985 that brain discrepancies in humans are very much alike to the ones seen by Gorski’s team in rats. In his work Swaab explaines that sexual dimorphism does exist in the suprachiasmatic nucleus portion of the brain; however, this dimorphism is with regard to sexual preference but not gender, as it was believed earlier. The suprachiasmatic nucleus is smaller in heterosexual men than in homosexual men.