Earlier quoted context omitted.
The article she offered directly links to them...
Was she part of the study?
Ah, I didn't realize how specific your use of "your" was, perhaps because she didn't make any claims about the structure of her own brain.
No evidence that testosterone reduces cognitive empathy
31–40 of 257 posts
Re: No evidence that testosterone reduces cognitive empathy
#32Earlier 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?
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Re: No evidence that testosterone reduces cognitive empathy
#33Earlier 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?
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…
I wonder if something like an MRI could allow medical professionals or diagnostic systems to automatically categorize this non-invasively?
When we reach a world where everyone has more star trek level medical care then a true survey of the population may allow for everyone to have improved lives.
Re: No evidence that testosterone reduces cognitive empathy
#34Curious they built up so much steam about refuting past notions... but chose a poor method (viewing actor's eyes). Paul Ekman has noted that assessing the emotional state from a single picture is difficult. Not to mention unless using genuine emotional faces, you're having actors "play" an emotion rather than feel it (Method vs. Mamet style acting ignored)
Couldn't agree with you more about the need for authenticity in tests of reading emotions. How could you possibly say someone got it wrong when they did not.
Re: No evidence that testosterone reduces cognitive empathy
#35EDIT: 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?
Ah, it seems I did overlook the significance of that part.
My apologies.
Re: No evidence that testosterone reduces cognitive empathy
#36>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.
That... is not publishable, in my opinion.
Re: No evidence that testosterone reduces cognitive empathy
#37>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…
Can't the brain structure be affected by the hormones being taken?
Re: No evidence that testosterone reduces cognitive empathy
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
The article she offered directly links to them...
Was she part of the study?
If someone is left-handed, and left-handedness has been shown to be very strongly correlated with a different brain structure, would you challenge them similarly if they state that they have a different brain structure because they are left handed?
Do you need to personally participate in studies to know anything about your body?
Re: No evidence that testosterone reduces cognitive empathy
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
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?
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Re: No evidence that testosterone reduces cognitive empathy
#40Earlier 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…
>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…
I'm the antithesis of an expert in this. If someone has better information, I'm sure you'll let me know. What I've picked up thus far as the consistent physical differences between male and female brains are:
1. Dominant synapse connection direction. Males typically have more front to back connections than side to side. This may explain why females typically are better at multi-tasking, and males are typically more focused.
2. Testosterone in the womb enlarges the 3d manipulation part of the brain.
3. Testosterone in the womb has some connection to sexuality. In particular, women typically show signs of arousal towards sex without any filter (ie, animals, same gender, w/e). Typical males will show no signs of arousal to certain things (typically other males). Also, twins boys have a significantly greater likelihood of homosexuality (less testosterone to go around).
There's plenty of other differences I'm sure, and many of these may not be true. But this is what I've noted thus far.