Open AccessBrain activation patterns associated with sexual orientation in homosexual male and female: a case study with 3.0T fMRI
Author(s) -
Gwang-Won Kim,
GwangWoo Jeong,
Jong-Chul Yang
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
journal of biomedical science and engineering
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 1937-688X
pISSN - 1937-6871
DOI - 10.4236/jbise.2011.43027
Subject(s) - sexual arousal , psychology , parahippocampal gyrus , functional magnetic resonance imaging , globus pallidus , amygdala , orbitofrontal cortex , sexual orientation , anterior cingulate cortex , putamen , midbrain , cortex (anatomy) , thalamus , arousal , neuroscience , hippocampus , gyrus , audiology , prefrontal cortex , basal ganglia , medicine , central nervous system , cognition , temporal lobe , social psychology , epilepsy
This study was performed to clarify the sexual orien-tation in a 19-year-old homosexual male and a 20-year-old homosexual female by using a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) with viewing male and female erotic nude pictures. The sex hor-mone levels of the homosexual male and female were in the normal range of healthy heterosexual males and females, respectively. In both homosexuals more significant brain activities were observed while view-ing the nude pictures of the same genetic sex than those of the opposite sex in the frontal cortex, parietal cortex, occipital cortex, anterior cingulate gyrus, amygdala, midbrain, hippocampus, orbitofrontal cortex, parahippocampal gyrus, thalamus, globus pallidus, and putamen, which are known to be re-sponsive to sexual arousal. The homosexual male and female showed a tendency toward higher sexual arousal to the same genetic sex as comparison with the opposite sex. This finding may be useful to un-derstand the different neural mechanisms on sexual arousal in homosexuals