However, both straight men and lesbians had slightly asymmetrical brains, with the right hemisphere being 1-2% larger on the left. Using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), Savic and Lindstrom showed that the brain’s two halves are almost exactly the same size in straight women and gay men. Their images show that in the brains of gay people, certain features including symmetry and connections to the brain’s emotional centre are more closely matched to the brains of straight people from the opposite sex.
Ivanka Savic and Per Lindstrom at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm scanned the brains of 90 men and women of different sexual orientations.
Unauthorized use is prohibited.Ī new study adds new weight to this evidence by using brain-scanning technology to look at the differences between the brains of gay and straight people.