Study examines lesbians’ brain reactions
Published 9:00 pm Monday, May 8, 2006
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.
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.
The findings lend weight to the idea that homosexuality has a physical basis and is not learned behavior.
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.
Heterosexual women found the male and female pheromones about equally pleasant, while straight men and lesbians liked the female pheromone more than the male one. Men and lesbians also found the male hormone more irritating than the female one, while straight women were more likely to be irritated by the female hormone than the male one.
