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No evidence that testosterone reduces cognitive empathy

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Re: No evidence that testosterone reduces cognitive empathy

#21
post #4

>Prior to this work, the strongest evidence for a link between testosterone exposure and reduced cognitive empathy came in 2011 in a study that found administering testosterone to healthy women reduced their performance on a test of reading emotions. The results suggested the testosterone impaired their performance. That's interesting. Adult males typically have 7-8 times the levels that females do, and females are m…

I'm actually curious how this changes the narrative of a trans person if testosterone doesn't have an effect on one's empathy.

Re: No evidence that testosterone reduces cognitive empathy

#22
post #4

>Prior to this work, the strongest evidence for a link between testosterone exposure and reduced cognitive empathy came in 2011 in a study that found administering testosterone to healthy women reduced their performance on a test of reading emotions. The results suggested the testosterone impaired their performance. That's interesting. Adult males typically have 7-8 times the levels that females do, and females are m…

The sample size of that study was 16, and the measured effect was a mean change from 81% correct answer on the test down to 77%.

I would not read too much into that study, especially given the result of the new larger one.

Re: No evidence that testosterone reduces cognitive empathy

#23
post #12
post #3

What is "cognitive empathy"? Is it a subtype of empathy where the brain is making a conscious work, or just a fancy way to say it ?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empathy#Classification Cognitive is the capacity to understand others emotional state, not necessarily react accordingly (affective empathy). I’m not surprised by this result, perspective taking and theory of mind is like the basic building block of consciousness. It would be odd if it differed.

But could it differ for "affective empathy" then?

Re: No evidence that testosterone reduces cognitive empathy

#24
post #19
post #4

>Prior to this work, the strongest evidence for a link between testosterone exposure and reduced cognitive empathy came in 2011 in a study that found administering testosterone to healthy women reduced their performance on a test of reading emotions. The results suggested the testosterone impaired their performance. That's interesting. Adult males typically have 7-8 times the levels that females do, and females are m…

Trans woman here. Cisgender men and women have different brain structures, and transgender people's brain structures tend to resemble that of the gender that they identify as[1]. So, for example, a trans woman like myself who was born male will have a brain structure that resembles that of a cis woman, not a man. > I know a trans man who, after a few months of testosterone, claimed it was "night and day" in how they…

How can you be so sure that your brain structure is actually different? Are there any scientific tests that can be performed to support this?

Re: No evidence that testosterone reduces cognitive empathy

#25
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trans woman here. Cisgender men and women have different brain structures, and transgender people's brain structures tend to resemble that of the gender that they identify as[1]. So, for example, a trans woman like myself who was born male will have a brain structure that resembles that of a cis woman, not a man. > I know a trans man who, after a few months of testosterone, claimed it was "night and day" in how they…

How can you be so sure that your brain structure is actually different? Are there any scientific tests that can be performed to support this?

The article she offered directly links to them...

Re: No evidence that testosterone reduces cognitive empathy

#26
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trans woman here. Cisgender men and women have different brain structures, and transgender people's brain structures tend to resemble that of the gender that they identify as[1]. So, for example, a trans woman like myself who was born male will have a brain structure that resembles that of a cis woman, not a man. > I know a trans man who, after a few months of testosterone, claimed it was "night and day" in how they…

How can you be so sure that your brain structure is actually different? Are there any scientific tests that can be performed to support this?

Dick Swaab of the Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience is a pioneer in the neuroscience underlying gender identity. In the mid-1990s, his group examined the postmortem brains of six transgender women and reported that the size of the central subdivision of the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis (BSTc or BNSTc), a sexually dimorphic area in the forebrain known to be important to sexual behavior, was closer to that of cisgender women than cisgender men.[1] A follow-up study of autopsied brains also found similarities in the number of a certain class of neurons in the BSTc between transgender women and their cisgender counterparts—and between a transgender man and cisgender men.[2] These differences did not appear to be attributable to the influence of endogenous sex hormone fluctuations or hormone treatment in adulthood. In another study published in 2008, Swaab and a coauthor examined the postmortem volume of the INAH3 subnucleus, an area of the hypothalamus previously linked to sexual orientation. The researchers found that this region was about twice as big in cisgender men as in women, whether trans- or cisgender.[3]

[1] J.-N. Zhou et al., “A sex difference in the human brain and its relation to transsexuality,” Nature, 378:68-70, 1995. [2] F.P. Kruijver, “Male-to-female transsexuals have female neuron numbers in a limbic nucleus,” J Clin Endocrinol Metab, 85:2034-41, 2000. [3] A. Garcia-Falgueras, D. Swaab, “A sex difference in the hypothalamic uncinate nucleus: relationship to gender identity,” Brain, 131:3132-46, 2008.

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All of the above is from the first google result and about 30 seconds of searching. https://www.the-scientist.com/features/are-the-brains-of-tra...

So, yeah, science is beginning to try and understand this stuff.

Re: No evidence that testosterone reduces cognitive empathy

#27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can you be so sure that your brain structure is actually different? Are there any scientific tests that can be performed to support this?

The article she offered directly links to them...

Was she part of the study?

Re: No evidence that testosterone reduces cognitive empathy

#28
post #18

EDIT: Disregard Comment was: This is testosterone administered to a fully formed brain. While it's still an interesting result, I would hesitate to make extrapolations to brain-developmental environments or developmental disorders.

Did you overlook the part about finger digit ratios, which are a proxy for testosterone exposure during development?

Re: No evidence that testosterone reduces cognitive empathy

#29
post #19
post #4

>Prior to this work, the strongest evidence for a link between testosterone exposure and reduced cognitive empathy came in 2011 in a study that found administering testosterone to healthy women reduced their performance on a test of reading emotions. The results suggested the testosterone impaired their performance. That's interesting. Adult males typically have 7-8 times the levels that females do, and females are m…

Trans woman here. Cisgender men and women have different brain structures, and transgender people's brain structures tend to resemble that of the gender that they identify as[1]. So, for example, a trans woman like myself who was born male will have a brain structure that resembles that of a cis woman, not a man. > I know a trans man who, after a few months of testosterone, claimed it was "night and day" in how they…

>Tend to resemble that of the gender that they identify as

I hear this claim a lot but I've never actually understood what "resembles" actually means. The brain structures that transgender people have don't match typical male or female brains but how do you determine which brain transgender brains resemble the most? What is the criteria? To me to determine which brain trans brains were more similar to you would have to study a LOT of dimorphic brain structures.

Some structures in transgender brains do resemble their sex or are sort of androgynous and inbetween. So I don't know how accurate trans woman = "resembles" a woman's brain actually is as a sweeping statement. In my experience trans women have rarely acted completely like either gender. I've seen trans women disperportionately engaging in masculine hobbies like computers compared to the average cis woman.

Re: No evidence that testosterone reduces cognitive empathy

#30
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trans woman here. Cisgender men and women have different brain structures, and transgender people's brain structures tend to resemble that of the gender that they identify as[1]. So, for example, a trans woman like myself who was born male will have a brain structure that resembles that of a cis woman, not a man. > I know a trans man who, after a few months of testosterone, claimed it was "night and day" in how they…

How can you be so sure that your brain structure is actually different? Are there any scientific tests that can be performed to support this?

Other commenters are linking to _studies_, I think parent is asking if GP had a _test_ done for them that specifically showed them their brain structure. Big difference between a study and a consumer-/patient- ready product. At least, studies could mean the product is forthcoming.

When I search "brain structure test" I get IQ/personality quiz web pages. "brain structure medical procedure" gets me general information on brain anatomy and glossaries of neurosurgical terms. "{gender|trans} identity brain structure procedure" similarly returns scholarly information.

Nothing on a procedure I could schedule with my doctor, but maybe it's easier to ask my doctor than use Google. Maybe someone with better Google-fu could suggest better keywords. Has anyone done this or asked their doctor about it? I know I'd be interested in what my brain looks like in this regard!

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