I posted a reply to Paula’s (_56) comment of “face blindness” (pathology of the fusiform face area in the fusiform gyrus, prosopagnosia) earlier- had a few comments back to me so I thought I’d post this as a new thread- since not everyone here may be aware of this.
Being CD or TG I think gives you good reason to look into how one's brain works. The fusiform gyri where facial recognition takes place is kind of a hard-wired area, like Broca's (language) area. And the BSTc area of the human brain- which in CD and TG is female sized, high correlation.
That's right- if you are looking for a physical sign or cause of why you are CD or TG - there is a high probability this areas of the brain, then this area, a.k.a. central subdivision of the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis (BSTc), in the amygdala, a small portion of the inner brain (basic brain functions)- check out these two links- this should shed some light on what you are talking about-
http://www.transgendercare.com/medic...n_sex_diff.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stria_terminalis
I’ll relate this FFA and Broca’s area to my students, in contrast with math skills (no pre-processing areas yet developed in the brain fo math). Thus, to get decent at math, you have to do ‘soft programming’, or a lot of repetition. It’s like writing a calculator program for the computer, insead of buying a calculator. You can do it- it just take longer and requires more practice. Not even hard practice, just a working lots of simple problems until you can do some in your head, then very slowly increasing the complexity. Unfortunately, math taught in high school and in college comes way to fast to really get the ideas down as a ‘reflexive action’, this is never so evident as when I have a great engineering student- all the way up through Calc III, A’s and B’s, and then try to get them to use basic math to _analyze_ a circuit…. It is dangerously frustrating to them- until they learn to see their brain function in terms of hard wiring and soft wiring.
CD and TG is not something that you can softwire- sure you can CD even if you don’t have a desire to do so- a lot of straight nonCD guys have done it once for fun or experimentation. Women do it as a matter of fashion (Don’t get me started on how hot a beautiful girl looks in “man-tailored” outfits… WOW!)
We are hardwired. This is thought to occur during fetal development, somewhere between 8 and 16 weeks if I remember correctly (might be off on the time). If mom’s hormones get a little out of whack, not sure of the reason- I’m sure someone here can elucidate more on the subject- zing- the BSTc does not get that little extra push to grow about 1/3 larger as it does in non-CD/TG men. Interestingly, one of the functions of the BST in general is related to inhibition regarding others and stress response- two things quite prominent as non-typical in CD/TG folks.
I just think it’s so cool that we can finally trace this to some hardwiring in the brain.
We CD & TG are literally 'born this way'- so... if one believes what certain fundamentalists insist- that CD or TG or homosexuality is a choice- well, i guess they are saying that we were made wrong, and our creator is flawed... or there is a problem with somebody's logic. Personally, I'd put my bet on the side of whoever/whatever created us... :-)
Several awesome books about the brain in general, that are accessible to the lay-CD (as opposed to the layman... :-))
· +++ "The Three Pound Universe"- Teresi & Hooper, awesome book. – Teresi also wrote with Leon Lederman, the nobel prize winner who led Fermilab in finding the Bottom (beauty) quark and so much more.
++· +++ Consciousness, Hobson: serious insight into your everyday mind and the way you think, daydream, memorize and sleep. (Scientific American Library series)
+++++ Wet Mind, Kosslyn/Koenig; looks the brain as an electrochemical computer, rather than the old view ‘its all electricity’-- I teach electricity, physics, et al, - Koenig gets the brain description better than ever in this book.
+++++ Perception, Rock; shows how your brain turns simple nerve signals into 3d object perception, also: “Eye, Brain, and Vision)- Hubel- freaking awesome especially considering the price- I have close to 70 volumes in this series- the Scientific American Library series- every volume is about equivalent to a 3-4 hour university level course on the subject, and it is written so much better than typical textbooks- it’s like a lecture and textbook combined. Get these- I mean it!
· +++ "the Dying of Enoch Wallace", Ira Black. Excellent reference about brain health and staving off dementia. Wonderfully written- Pulitzer quality- very human, very adroit. This book will move you.
These are all available used on ebay or amazon for less than $5-10 each. You will never think about your brain in the same way... :-)
I hope this helps, even if you don't like my little political/religious comment..../
-Kristi ( happier than ever with my CD brain, a lot due to CD.COM! J )