Male-to-female transsexuals show sex-atypical hypothalamus activation when smelling odorous steroids

Cerebral Cortex

Volumn 18, Issue 8, 2008, Pages 1900-1908

  Berglund, H ^a   Lindstrom P ^a   Dhejne Helmy, C ^b   Savic, I ^a,b  

^a KAROLINSKA INSTITUTE   (Sweden)

^b KAROLINSKA UNIVERSITY HOSPITAL   (Sweden)

Author keywords

Hypothalamus; Odor; PET; Pheromones; Transsexuality

Indexed keywords

ANDROSTA 4,16 DIEN 3 ONE; ESTRATETRAENOL; ESTROGEN DERIVATIVE; PHEROMONE;

ADULT; AMYGDALOID NUCLEUS; ARTICLE; BRAIN FUNCTION; BRAIN REGION; BRAIN SIZE; FEMALE; HUMAN; HUMAN EXPERIMENT; HYPOTHALAMUS; MALE; MALE TO FEMALE TRANSSEXUAL; NERVE CELL DIFFERENTIATION; NEUROIMAGING; NORMAL HUMAN; ODOR; POSITRON EMISSION TOMOGRAPHY; PRIORITY JOURNAL; PYRIFORM CORTEX; SEX DIFFERENTIATION; TASK PERFORMANCE;

ADULT; FEMALE; HUMANS; HYPOTHALAMUS; MALE; ODORS; OLFACTORY PATHWAYS; SEXUAL BEHAVIOR; SMELL; STEROIDS; TRANSSEXUALISM;

EID: 47649127353     PISSN: 10473211     EISSN: 14602199     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1093/cercor/bhm216     Document Type: Article

References (55)

1. Allen LS, Hines M, Shryne JE, Gorski RA. 1989. Two sexually dimorphic cell groups in the human brain. J Neurosci. 9:497-506.
2. American Psychiatric Association Task Force on DSM-IV. 1994. Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders: DSM-IV. Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Association.
3. Baum MJ. 2003. Activational and organizational effects of estradiol on male behavioral neuroendocrine function. Scand J Psychol. 44:213-220.
4. Baum MJ. 2006. Mammalian animal models of psychosexual differentiation: when is 'translation' to the human situation possible? Horm Behav. 50:579-588.
5. Benjamin H. 1967. The transsexual phenomenon. Trans N Y Acad Sci. 29:428-430.
6. Bensafi M, Brown WM, Khan R, Levenson B, Sobel N. 2004. Sniffing human sex-steroid derived compounds modulates mood, memory and autonomic nervous system function in specific behavioral contexts. Behav Brain Res. 152:11-22.
7. Bensafi M, Tsutsui T, Khan R, Levenson RW, Sobel N. 2004. Sniffing a human sex-steroid derived compound affects mood and autonomic arousal in a dose-dependent manner. Psychoneuroendocrinology. 29:1290-1299.
8. Berglund H, Lindstrom P, Savic I. 2006. Brain response to putative pheromones in lesbian women. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 103:8269-8274.
9. Blanchard R. 1989. The classification and labeling of nonhomosexual gender dysphorias. Arch Sex Behav. 18:315-334.
10. Canli T, Gabrieli JD. 2004. Imaging gender differences in sexual arousal. Nat Neurosci. 7:325-326.
11. Chivers ML, Bailey JM. 2000. Sexual orientation of female-to-male transsexuals: a comparison of homosexual and nonhomosexual types. Arch Sex Behav. 29:259-278.
12. Cohen H, Forget H. 1995. Auditory cerebral lateralization following cross-gender hormone therapy. Cortex. 31:565-573.
13. Cohen-Kettenis PT, van Goozen SH, Doorn CD, Gooren LJ. 1998. Cognitive ability and cerebral lateralisation in transsexuals. Psychoneuroendocrinology. 23:631-641.
14. Eiden LE, Hokfelt T, Brownstein MJ, Palkovits M. 1985. Vasoactive intestinal polypeptide afferents to the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis in the rat: an immunohistochemical and biochemical study. Neuroscience. 15:999-1013.
15. Fels E, Bosch LR. 1971. Effect of prenatal administration of testosterone on ovarian function in rats. Am J Obstet Gynecol. 111:964-969.
16. Frackowiak RSJ. 2004. Human brain function. Amsterdam (London): Elsevier Academic.
17. Friston KJ, Holmes A, Poline JB, Price CJ, Frith CD. 1996. Detecting activations in PET and fMRI: levels of inference and power. Neuroimage. 4:223-235.
18. Friston KJ, Holmes AP, Worsley KJ. 1999. How many subjects constitute a study? Neuroimage. 10:1-5.
19. Gooren L. 2006. The biology of human psychosexual differentiation. Horm Behav. 50:589-601.
20. Gottfried JA, Deichmann R, Winston JS, Dolan RJ. 2002. Functional heterogeneity in human olfactory cortex: an event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging study. J Neurosci. 22:10819-10828.
21. Grosser BI, Monti-Bloch L, Jennings-White C, Berliner DL. 2000. Behavioral and electrophysiological effects of androstadienone, a human pheromone. Psychoneuroendocrinology. 25:289-299.
22. Haraldsen IR, Egeland T, Haug E, Finset A, Opjordsmoen S. 2005. Cross-sex hormone treatment does not change sex-sensitive cognitive performance in gender identity disorder patients. Psychiatry Res. 137:161-174.
23. Hillert L, Musabasic V, Berglund H, Ciumas C, Savic I. 2007. Odor processing in multiple chemical sensitivity. Hum Brain Mapp. 28:172-182.
24. Jacob S, Garcia S, Hayreh D, McClintock MK. 2002. Psychological effects of musky compounds: comparison of androstadienone with androstenol and muscone. Horm Behav. 42:274-283.
25. Jacob S, Hayreh DJ, McClintock MK. 2001. Context-dependent effects of steroid chemosignals on human physiology and mood. Physiol Behav. 74:15-27.
26. Jones-Gotman M, Zatorre RJ. 1988. Olfactory identification deficits in patients with focal cerebral excision. Neuropsychologia. 26:387-400.
27. Karama S, Lecours AR, Leroux JM, Bourgouin P, Beaudoin G, Joubert S, Beauregard M. 2002. Areas of brain activation in males and females during viewing of erotic film excerpts. Hum Brain Mapp. 16:1-13.
28. Kimura D. 1996. Sex, sexual orientation and sex hormones influence human cognitive function. Curr Opin Neurobiol. 6:259-263.
29. Kinsey AC. 1953. Sexual behavior in the human female. Philadelphia (PA): Saunders.
30. Kruijver FP, Zhou JN, Pool CW, Hofman MA, Gooren LJ, Swaab DF. 2000. Male-to-female transsexuals have female neuron numbers in a limbic nucleus. J Clin Endocrinol Metab. 85:2034-2041.
31. La Torre RA, Gossmann I, Piper WE. 1976. Cognitive style, hemispheric specialization, and tested abilities of transsexuals and nontranssexuals. Percept Mot Skills. 43:719-722.
32. LeVay S. 1991. A difference in hypothalamic structure between heterosexual and homosexual men. Science. 253:1034-1037.
33. Lundstrom JN, Goncalves M, Esteves F, Olsson MJ. 2003. Psychological effects of subthreshold exposure to the putative human pheromone 4,16-androstadien-3-one. Horm Behav. 44:395-401.
34. Lundstrom JN, Olsson MJ. 2005. Subthreshold amounts of social odorant affect mood, but not behavior, in heterosexual women when tested by a male, but not a female, experimenter. Biol Psychol. 70:197-204.
35. Lundstrom JN, Olsson MJ, Schaal B, Hummel T. 2006. A putative social chemosignal elicits faster cortical responses than perceptually similar odorants. Neuroimage. 30:1340-1346.
36. McGlone J. 1978. Sex differences in functional brain asymmetry. Cortex. 14:122-128.
37. Oldfield RC. 1971. The assessment and analysis of handedness: the Edinburgh inventory. Neuropsychologia. 9:97-113.
38. Royet JP, Koenig O, Gregoire MC, Cinotti L, Lavenne F, Le Bars D, Costes N, Vigouroux M, Farget V, Sicard G, et al. 1999. Functional anatomy of perceptual and semantic processing for odors. J Cogn Neurosci. 11:94-109.
39. Savic I, Berglund H, Gulyas B, Roland P. 2001. Smelling of odorous sex hormone-like compounds causes sex-differentiated hypothalamic activations in humans. Neuron. 31:661-668.
40. Savic I, Berglund H, Lindstrom P. 2005. Brain response to putative pheromones in homosexual men. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 102:7356-7361.
41. Savic I, Gulyas B, Larsson M, Roland P. 2000. Olfactory functions are mediated by parallel and hierarchical processing. Neuron. 26:735-745.
42. Schaltenbrand G, Bailey P. 1959. Einfèuhrung in die stereotaktischen Operationen: mit einem Atlas des menschlichen Gehirns. [Introduction to stereotaxis, with an atlas of the human brain]. Stuttgart (Germany): G. Thieme.
43. Slijper FM, Drop SL, Molenaar JC, de Muinck Keizer-Schrama SM. 1998. Long-term psychological evaluation of intersex children. Arch Sex Behav. 27:125-144.
44. Smith YL, van Goozen SH, Kuiper AJ, Cohen-Kettenis PT. 2005. Transsexual subtypes: clinical and theoretical significance. Psychiatry Res. 137:151-160.
45. Sobel N, Prabhakaran V, Desmond JE, Glover GH, Goode RL, Sullivan EV, Gabrieli JD. 1998. Sniffing and smelling: separate subsystems in the human olfactory cortex. Nature. 392:282-286.
46. Swaab DF. 2004. Sexual differentiation of the human brain: relevance for gender identity, transsexualism and sexual orientation. Gynecol Endocrinol. 19:301-312.
47. Swaab DF, Fliers E. 1985. A sexually dimorphic nucleus in the human brain. Science. 228:1112-1115.
48. Talairach J, Tournoux P. 1988. Co-planar stereotaxic atlas of the human brain: 3-dimensional proportional system: an approach to medical cerebral imaging. New York: Thieme.
49. Thysen B, Elliott WH, Katzman PA. 1968. Identification of estra-1,3,5(10),16-tetraen-3-ol (estratetraenol) from the urine of pregnant women (1). Steroids. 11:73-87.
50. van Goozen SH, Slabbekoorn D, Gooren LJ, Sanders G, Cohen-Kettenis PT. 2002. Organizing and activating effects of sex hormones in homosexual transsexuals. Behav Neurosci. 116:982-988.
51. Wyart C, Webster WW, Chen JH, Wilson SR, McClary A, Khan RM, Sobel N. 2007. Smelling a single component of male sweat alters levels of cortisol in women. J Neurosci. 27:1261-1265.
52. Yalom ID, Green R, Fisk N. 1973. Prenatal exposure to female hormones. Effect on psychosexual development in boys. Arch Gen Psychiatry. 28:554-561.
53. Zald DH, Pardo JV. 2000. Functional neuroimaging of the olfactory system in humans. Int J Psychophysiol. 36:165-181.
54. Zatorre RJ, Jones-Gotman M, Evans AC, Meyer E. 1992. Functional localization and lateralization of human olfactory cortex. Nature. 360:339-340.
55. Zhou JN, Hofman MA, Gooren LJ, Swaab DF. 1995. A sex difference in the human brain and its relation to transsexuality. Nature. 378:68-70.