Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-rdxmf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-22T08:34:51.589Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

EEG Abnormalities and Transsexualism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2018

J. Hoenig  and
J. C. Kenna
J. Hoenig
Affiliation:
Memorial University of Newfoundland, St John's, Newfoundland, Canada A1B 3V6
J. C. Kenna
Affiliation:
University Department of Psychiatry, Manchester, U.K.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Summary

A consecutive series of 46 transsexuals, 35 men and 11 women, showed EEG abnormalities in 48 per cent and borderline abnormalities in another 24 per cent. Women showed the abnormalities in a significantly higher proportion than men. Those with the EEG abnormalities were slightly younger at inception, suggesting that they sought help at an earlier age, and their transsexualism became obvious to their families earlier. Those with personality disorders had EEG abnormalities more frequently, but not significantly so. This group of transsexual patients seemed to have a low sex drive, and those with abnormal EEGs even more so, but again the differences were not significant.

The possible significance of these findings for the understanding of transsexualism is discussed.

Type
Research Article
Information
The British Journal of Psychiatry , Volume 134 , Issue 3 , March 1979 , pp. 293 - 300
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1979 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bente, D. & Kluge, E. (1953) Sexuelle Reizzustände im Rahmen des Uncinatus-Syndroms. Archives of Psychiatry, 190, 257–376.Google Scholar
Berner, P. (1965) Das Paranoische Syndrom. Monographien Neurologie und Psychiatric Hft. 10. Berlin: Springer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bhaskaran, K. (1955) Psychosexual identification in the epilepsies-. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 121, 230–5.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Binder, H. (1933) Das Verlangen nach Geschlechtsum wandlung. Zeitschrift für die gesamte Neurologie und Psychiatrie. CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Blumer, D. (1969) Transsexualism, sexual dysfunction and temporal lobe disorder. In Transsexualism and Sex Reassignment. Ed. Green, R. and Money, J. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 213–19.Google Scholar
Blumer, D. & Walker, A. E. (1967) Sexual behaviour in temporal lobe epilepsy. Archives of Neurology (Chicago). CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bürger-Prinz, H., Albrecht, H. & Giese, H. (1966) Zur Phänomenologie des Transvestitismus bei Männern. Beitrag zur Sexualforschung, H.3. Enke, Stuttgart.Google Scholar
Davies, B. M. & Morgenstern, F. S. (1960) A case of cysticercosis, temporal lobe epilepsy and transvestism. Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery and Psychiatry, 23, 247–9.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Epstein, A. W. (1961) Relationship of fetishism and transvestism to brain and particularly temporal lobe dysfunction. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 133, 247–53.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Freud, S. (1905) Drei Abhandlungen zur Sexualtheorie. Deuticke, Wien.Google Scholar
Freund, K. (1969) Konzeption und Forschungsmöglichkeiten auf dem Gebiet der sexuellen Deviationen. Psychiatrie, Neurologie und Medizinische Psychologie, 21, 161–4.Google Scholar
Garfinkel, H. (1967) Studies in Ethnomethodology. Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs.Google Scholar
Gastaut, H. & Collomb, H. (1954) Etude du comportement sexuel chez les épileptiques psycho-moteurs. Annates Médico-Psychologiques (Paris), 112, 667–96.Google Scholar
Gibbs, F. A. & Gibbs, E. L. (1944) EEG changes with age in adolescent and adult control subjects. Transactions of the American Neurological Association, 70, 154–7.Google Scholar
Hierons, R. & Saunders, M. (1966) Impotence in patients with temporal lobe lesions. Lancet, ii, 761–4.Google Scholar
Hill, D. (1952) EEG in episodic psychotic and psychopathic behaviour; classification of data. Electroencephalography and Clinical Neurophysiology (Amsterdam), 4, 419–42.Google ScholarPubMed
Hill, D., Pond, D. A., Mitchell, W. & Falconer, M. A. (1957) Personality changes following temporal lobectomy for epilepsy. Journal of Mental Science, 103, 18–27.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hoenig, J. & Duggan, E. (1974) Sexual and other abnormalities in the family of a transsexual. Psychiatria Clinica, 7, 334–6.Google ScholarPubMed
Hoenig, J. & Hamilton, C. M. (1960) Epilepsy and sexual orgasm. Acta Psychiatrica et Neurologica Scandinavica, 35, 448–56.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hoenig, J. & Kenna, J. C. (1974a) The prevalence of transsexualism in England and Wales. British Journal of Psychiatry, 124, 181–90.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hoenig, J. & Kenna, J. C. (1974b) The nosological position of transsexualism. Archives of Sexual Behaviour, 3, 273–87.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hooshmand, H. & Brawley, B. W. (1969) Temporal lobe seizures and exhibitionism. Neurology, 19, 1119–24.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hunter, R., Logue, V. & McMenemy, W. H. (1963) Temporal lobe epilepsy supervening on longstanding transvestism and fetishism. Epilepsia, 4, 60–5.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Janzik, H. H., Mayer, D., Schmitz, I. & Gilch, G. (1976) Hirnverletzung und feminine Sexualität. Der Nervenarzt, 47, 108–11.Google Scholar
Kluver, H. & Bucy, P. C. (1939) Preliminary analysis of functions of the temporal lobes in monkeys. Archives of Neurology and Psychiatry, 42, 979–1000.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kockott, G. & Nusselt, L. (1976) Zur Frage der cerebralen Dysfunktion bei der Transsexualität. Der Nervenarzt, 47, 310–18.Google Scholar
Kolárský, A., Freund, K., Machek, J. & Polak, O. (1967) Male sexual deviation associated with early temporal lobe damage. Archives of General Psychiatry, 17, 735–43.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Mignone, R. J., Donelly, E. F. & Sadowsky, D. (1970) Psychological and neurological comparisons of psychomotor and non-psychomotor epileptic patients. Epilepsia, 11, 345–59.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Mitchell, W., Falconer, M. A. & Hill, D. (1954) Epilepsy with fetishism relieved by temporal lobectomy. Lancet, ii, 626–30.Google Scholar
Pauly, I. B. (1969) Adult manifestations of female transsexualism. In Transsexualism and Sex Reassignment. Ed. Green, R. and Money, J. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press.Google Scholar
Petritzer, B. K. & Foster, J. (1955) A case study of a male transvestite with epilepsy and juvenile diabetes. Journal of Mental and Nervous Disease, 121, 557–63.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Randell, J. (1970) Transvestism and transsexualism. British Journal of Hospital Medicine, 211–13.Google Scholar
Schneider, K. (1958) Psychopathic Personalities. Translated by Hamilton, M. W. London: Cassell.Google Scholar
Spate, H. F. (1970) Zum Anteil des limbischen Systems in der Pathogenese des Transvestismus. Psychiatrie, Neurologie und Medizinische Psychologie, 22, 339–44.Google Scholar
Taylor, A. J. W. & McLachlan, D. G. (1962) Clinical and psychological observations on transvestism. New Zealand Medical Journal, 61, 496–506.Google ScholarPubMed
Taylor, D. C. (1971) Appetitative inadequacy in the sex behaviour of temporal lobe epileptics. In Zentralneruöse Sexualsteuerung. Ed. Orthner, H. Suppl. X, 426–90. Journal of Neurovisceral Relations. N.Y.: Springer, Wien.Google Scholar
Terzian, H. (1958) Observations on the clinical symptomatology of bilateral partial or total removal of temporal lobes in man. In Temporal Lobe Epilepsy. Ed. Baldwin, M. Springfield, Illinois.Google Scholar
Torelli, D. & Bosna, F. (1958) Alternazioni del erotismo nell’ epilepsia e nei tumori cerebrali. Acta Neurologica (Napoli), 23, 154–65.Google Scholar
Van Reeth, P., Dierkens, J. & Luminet, D. (1958) L'hypersexualité dans l'épilepsie et les tumeurs du lobe temporal. Acta Neurologica (Belgia), 58, 195–218.Google Scholar
Vietze, G. (1970) Zur Pathogenese des Transsexualismus—Literatur und Fallbericht. Psychiatrie, Neurologie und Medizinische Psychologie, 22, 81–91.Google Scholar
Wålinder, J. (1965) Transvestism, definition and evidence in favour of occasional derivation from cerebral dysfunction. International Journal of Neuropsychiatry, 1, 567–73.Google ScholarPubMed
Wålinder, J. (1967) Transsexualism. Akademiforlaget Göteborg.Google Scholar
Walker, A. E. (1972) The libidinous temporal lobes. Schweizer Archiv fur Neurologie, Neurochirurgie und Psychiatrie, 111, 473–84.Google Scholar
Yawger, N. S. (1940) Transvestism and other cross sex manifestations. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 92, 41–8.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Submit a response

eLetters

No eLetters have been published for this article.