Tae-Hoon Kim1, Seok-Kwun Kim2, Gwang-Woo Jeong, 13
1Research Institute of Medical Imaging, Chonnam National University Medical School, Gwangju, Korea, Republic of; 2Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, Dong-A University Hospital, Busan, Korea, Republic of; 3Radiology, Chonnam National University Medical School, Gwangju, Korea, Republic of
Present inferences postulate that the perception of the own sex is linked to sexual differentiation of the brain and that perception in transsexuals differs from the body phenotype. Such a discrepancy is believed to be possible because sex differentiation of the brain occurs later in development than sex differentiation of genitals. Therefore, this implies that neuroanatomy plays a important role in determining transsexualism or gender identity. Recently, Gizewski et al. reported that male-to-female (MtF) transsexuals showed specific cerebral activation in response to visual erotic stimuli, indicating a tendency of female-like cerebral processing in transsexualism. However, female-to-male (FtM) transsexuals are little known. Therefore, this study was to evaluate the brain activation in response to visual erotic stimuli for cross-gender identity in FtM transsexuals by using fMRI.