ArticleCerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991)2020
Neural Systems for Own-body Processing Align with Gender Identity Rather Than Birth-assigned Sex.
Article in Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991), 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 18 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
18 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 34 citations in OpenAlex.
- Structural, Functional, and Metabolic Brain Differences as a Function of Gender Identity or Sexual Orientation: A Systematic Review of the Human Neuroimaging Literature.Archives of sexual behavior · 2021Pooled it
- The phenomenology of gender dysphoria in adults: A systematic review and meta-synthesis.Clinical psychology review · 2020Pooled it
- Comparing local brain activity and distant functional connectivity in transgender women compared to cisgender controls.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Brain Sex: Differences That Do Not Differentiate.Archives of sexual behavior · 2025Article
- Beyond Dehumanized Gender Identity: Critical Reflection on Neuroscience, Power Relationship and Law.Integrative psychological & behavioral science · 2024Article
- Beyond the Gender Binarism: Neural Correlates of Trans Men in a Functional Connectivity-Resting-State fMRI Pilot Study.Journal of clinical medicine · 2024Article
- After the trans brain: a critique of the neurobiological accounts of embodied trans* identities.History and philosophy of the life sciences · 2024Article
- A scoping review of the research literature on eating and body image for transgender and nonbinary adults.Journal of eating disorders · 2023Article
- Exploring gender dysphoria and related outcomes in a prospective cohort study: protocol for the Swedish Gender Dysphoria Study (SKDS).BMJ open · 2023Article
- Whole-brain dynamics differentiate among cisgender and transgender individuals.Human brain mapping · 2022Article
- Investigation of Brain Activation Patterns Related to the Feminization or Masculinization of Body and Face Images across Genders.Tomography (Ann Arbor, Mich.) · 2022Article
- Evaluation of personality disorders in patients with Gender Identity Disorder (GID): An update.Journal of family medicine and primary care · 2022Article
- Transgender data collection in the electronic health record: Current concepts and issues.Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association : JAMIA · 2022Article
- Brain connectivity dynamics in cisgender and transmen people with gender incongruence before gender affirmative hormone treatment.Scientific reports · 2021Article
- Cortical Gyrification in Transgender Individuals.Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991) · 2021Article
- Cross-sex hormone treatment and own-body perception: behavioral and brain connectivity profiles.Scientific reports · 2021Observational
- Fluidity of gender identity induced by illusory body-sex change.Scientific reports · 2020Article
- Neural Correlates of Gender Face Perception in Transgender People.Journal of clinical medicine · 2020Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
7 authors at 4 institutions in 3 countries.
Funding
Abstract
Gender identity is a core aspect of self-identity and is usually congruent with birth-assigned sex and own body sex-perception. The neuronal circuits underlying gender identity are unknown, but greater awareness of transgenderism has sparked interest in studying these circuits. We did this by comparing brain activation and connectivity in transgender individuals (for whom gender identity and birth-assigned sex are incongruent) with that in cisgender controls (for whom they are congruent) when performing a body self-identification task during functional magnetic resonance imaging. Thirty transgender and 30 cisgender participants viewed images of their own bodies and bodies morphed in sex toward or opposite to birth-assigned sex, rating each image to the degree they identified with it. While controls identified with images of themselves, transgender individuals identified with images morphed "opposite" to their birth-assigned sex. After covarying out the effect of self-similarity ratings, both groups activated similar self- and body-processing systems when viewing bodies that aligned with their gender identity rather than birth-assigned sex. Additionally, transgender participants had greater limbic involvement when viewing ambiguous, androgynous images of themselves morphed toward their gender identity. These results shed light on underlying self-processing networks specific to gender identity and uncover additional involvement of emotional processing in transgender individuals.
Indexed as
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What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.