A study published in 2026 in the journal Scientific Reports (from the Nature group) offers new data on the brain activity of transgender women, a group for which neuroscientific evidence remains scarce and, at times, contradictory. The team, made up of researchers from Central South University (Changsha, China), used resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging to compare the functioning of the brains of 16 transgender women with that of 16 cisgender men and 16 cisgender women.
The study measured three complementary scales of brain function: the local activity of specific regions (using the ALFF and ReHo indices), functional connectivity between distant regions, and the global properties of the neuronal network. The results showed that transgender women present a greater amplitude of low-frequency fluctuation in the cerebellum, the precentral gyrus, and the thalamus, as well as lower regional homogeneity in the precuneus compared with cisgender participants. As for connectivity, weaker connections were observed, especially in the ventral attention and sensorimotor networks, along with lower local efficiency.
A notable finding is the pattern observed in most of the measures: cisgender men occupied an intermediate position between transgender women and cisgender women. The authors interpret that transgender women show their own, distinct functional profile, but that, overall, it bears greater similarity to that of cisgender men — that is, to the sex assigned at birth — than to that of cisgender women. This conclusion adds to an open scientific debate about whether the brain of people with gender incongruence more closely resembles gender identity, sex assigned at birth, or a unique pattern.
The researchers also note that the alterations observed in the sensorimotor network partially coincide with those described in major depressive disorder, and that the cerebellum and thalamus, regions with significant differences in local activity, are involved in emotional regulation. Therefore, they suggest that these neuronal circuits could be targets of interest for future interventions aimed at improving the psychological well-being of transgender women, although they stress that these are initial hypotheses requiring further research.
The authors acknowledge the limitations of the study, including the small sample size and its cross-sectional nature, which prevents establishing causal relationships. Nevertheless, the study provides a multiscale perspective — local, interregional, and global — that is uncommon in the previous literature, and contributes to grounding the biological basis of gender identity in transgender people from a rigorous and empirical approach.
Bibliographic reference:
Li, X., Xiang, Z., Liu, D., et al. Comparing local brain activity and distant functional connectivity in transgender women compared to cisgender controls. Scientific Reports 16, 9253 (2026). DOI: 10.1038/s41598-026-40083-8.
Article page: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-026-40083-8
