Endocrine Abstracts

The concept of gender identity is uniquely human. Hence we are left with the phenomenon of men and women suffering from Gender Dysphoria (GD) also known as transsexualism to study the origins of gender identity in humans. It has been hypothesized that atypical levels of sex steroids during a perinatal critical period of neuronal sexual differentiation may be involved in the development of GD. In order to test this hypothesis, we investigated brain structure and function in ind...

The classic view of sexual differentiation in mammalian species holds that sex differences in the brain and behavior develop under the influence of estrogens derived from the neural aromatization of testosterone: the brain develops as male in the presence of estrogens and as female in their absence. In agreement with this view, it has been proposed that the female brain needs to be protected from estrogens produced by the placenta and that alpha-fetoprotein (AFP) - a major fet...