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from Clinical/Therapeutic Issues
Researchers Study Face Perception
And Sexual Orientation Reactions
January 10, 2006 - University of Zurich researchers Felicitas Kranz and
Alumit Ishai, have just published a study in Current Biology (Vol. 16, Issue 1,
pgs 63-68, 1/10/2006) that found heterosexual and homosexual subjects to react
differently to faces of males and females in one area of the brain.
The researchers began with the hypothesis that homosexual brains and
heterosexual brains would react differently to seeing the faces of males and
females. They used a functional MRI technique to spot locations in the brain
where reactions might be noted when subjects were exposed to the faces of men
and women.
Researchers say they found that regardless of the gender or sexual orientation
of the person tested, all subjects rated the attractiveness of both male and
female faces very similarly. All subjects also showed virtual identical patterns
of neutral activity in regions of the visual cortex and limbic system when
exposed to male and female faces.
They found, however, that the gender of a viewed individual, when the sexual
preference of the viewer was taken into account, did make a difference in the
reactions seen in the thalamus and the orbitofrontal cortext, a region of the
brain's reward circuity. Heterosexual women and homosexual men showed a greater
response to a male's face; heterosexual men and homosexual women responded
differently to a female's face.
According to an abstract of the study, researchers say: "Our findings suggest
that sexual preference modulates face-evoked activiation in the reward
circuitry." The study was supported by a Swiss National Science Foundation
grant.
Updated: 8 February 2008
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