Comments on: Study examines brain differences related to sexual orientation

By: carole

carole — Sat, 17 Jan 2009 22:59:25 +0000

This is an old thread, but I didn’t know where to put this and since it has to do, in part, with the etiology of SSA, I chose this thread. on which to put it. I hope it doesn’t get lost.
I am wondering: This study I link below was begun years ago, yet I can find no record of its findings. Is this is the study to which Greg Cochran (he of the “germ theory” hypothesis) told the readers of the Gene Expression blog that Blanchard ( I guess he is a researcher in the field?) asked for the HLA types of the SSA brothers and “the bastards wouldn’t give them to him”?
Anyone know anything about the findings of this study? Perhaps I am Google-inept today, but something seems very odd.
http://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/results?cond=%22Homosexuality%22
I

By: Evan

Evan — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 02:44:26 +0000

A very interesting study was published today. Maybe the nexus with this study related to sexual orientation is a bit too general, but there are some telling similarities.
The news can be found on ScienceDaily under the title: ‘Severe Shyness? New Study Shows That Anxiety Is Likely A Long-lasting Trait.’
Briefly — a team of scientists from the University of Wisconsin-Madison studied brain activity in relation to anxious temperament. They found greater amygdala activation across many environments, even where the subjects felt safe. This is similar to what Savic and Lindstrom found in heterosexual female and homosexual male brains when the subjects were lying in a resting state and breathing. Let’s not forget the Safron et al. (2007) study, in which gay men’s brains showed greater amygdala activation than straight men’s brains on three different stimuli tests.
This pattern of activation that supports anxious temperament involved a neural circuit that was already known from studies on stress and anxiety: the amygdala, the bed nucleus of stria terminalis (BSTc), the bilateral hippocampus, and the periaqueductal gray (PAG). People who are familiar with the literature on sexually dimorphic brain regions probably remember that the BSTc was reported to be smaller in females and that the same pattern was observed in transsexuals. Another interesting thing I remember, but which is very rarely mentioned about the PAG is that it is involved in the female lordosis behaviour.
Something is atypically sensitive or insensitive in the amygdala in both sexes of the same homosexual orientation. My intuition tells me that it’s not just an isolated predisposition but also a correlation with another area that modulates aggressiveness and which in typical patterns of activation acts as a buffer to incoming stimuli, a sensory gating mechanism. Deficits in sensory gating have been known to predispose to a number of disorders involving different neural networks that included the amygdala. In homosexual women, a male-typical pattern might point to similarly expressed and modulated aggressiveness that reflects on the way the amygdala is activated and connected to other regions.
OK, I am considering getting a second degree… ;P

By: Warren

Warren — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 11:26:04 +0000

Evan – I agree that the maternal studies right now are “what ifs.” The Sanders and UCLA studies are well designed and will likely provide us with a clearer picture.

By: Warren

Warren — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 11:22:23 +0000

jayhuck – You provided opinion but did not provide any evidence for it that I could see. Evan provided links and studies with commentary. If you have a response to the studies that counter the findings, then please use evidence from studies. Otherwise, just saying I dont agree with you doesn’t add much to a conversation.

By: jayhuck

jayhuck — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 04:14:26 +0000

Ann,
I did attack his arguments 🙂

By: jayhuck

jayhuck — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 04:13:28 +0000

Warren,
I countered Evan’s opinions with my own opinions – look like the thread may be dead anyway.

By: Warren

Warren — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 18:42:49 +0000

A number of the last few comments have been off topic and have been deleted. Please comment on the topic or move on to something else.

By: Warren

Warren — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 18:07:15 +0000

jayhuck – If you have some counter evidence to offer to Evan’s arguments then offer it. Ad hominems are not acceptable. If you have nothing to counter it besides that then, there is no need to offer a comment on this thread.

By: Ann

Ann — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 15:16:10 +0000

Jayhuck,

Your arguments are starting to look very biased

This is what you said to Evan. Do you think your comments or arguments are any different? Calling someone anti-gay is a serious allegation and not helpful. Attack his arguments, not him.

By: Evan

Evan — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 14:48:30 +0000

Jayhuck,

Your arguments are starting to look very biased

Are you saying this because you don’t like where rational arguments can lead to and because you have no counterarguments? This is how it looks like. I haven’t seen you quoting references or refuting some proposed explanations by coming up with better ones. There’s nothing wrong with not doing it, but it doesn’t entitle you to dismiss other people’s efforts without addressing their arguments.