Parting Glances: Micro-Dotting Us And 'Them'

The human brain is often called "the three pound universe." It contains a hundred billion neurons, allowing for more connections among these busy, busy, busy transmitters than there are twinkling stars in our Milky Way.
Take off a week or two of your next vacation time to align these neurons: the resulting line dance would be 621 miles long.
Poet Emily Dickinson — whose own graceful 19th century neurons danced to hymnal meters — wrote, "The brain is just the weight of God/ For, lift them, pound by pound/ And they will differ, if they do/ As syllable from sound."
Obviously, brains do differ. How much — say, between the statistically "normal" brain and that of someone with schizophrenia, a bipolar person, a male and a female brain, a straight and gay brain — is rapidly and tantalizingly being mapped by scientists.
Neurologically curious, the National Institute of Health launched a $3 million Human Connectome Project that combines a variety of MRI and CAT scanning/imaging technologies to systematically pinpoint wiring, micro-dot by micro-dot.
One outcome eagerly anticipated: how our inward galaxy of neurons gives rise to single, conscious minds. ("The brain is wider than the sky/ For, put them side by side/ The one the other will include/ With ease, and you beside.")
There's growing evidence of differences between gay and straight brain structuring, some subtle, some quite pronounced, according to "The Male Brain," by Dr. Louann Brizendine (Broadway Books; $24.99).
She comments in the appendix ("The Male Brain and Sexual Orientation"), "Are men gay because their brains are different? Studies have been conducted for two decades in order to answer this question. Some of them have found evidence of anatomical or functional differences between gay and straight brains.
"Others have established that genes play a part in determining gender orientation, which implies the existence of brain differences." (Get out your "Gray's Anatomy," Mary. It's going to be a phrenological bumpy night!)
Some recent findings are here summarized: "A part of the hypothalamus called the supraciasmatic nucleus is twice as large in gay males as in straight males. A bundle of connections between the brain's two hemispheres — called the anterior commisure — is also larger in gay males than in straight males. It's also larger in straight females as well.
"The hypothalamus in gay male brains is stimulated by the scent of male sweat, but in the straight male brain it is not. This suggests that a difference in the brain's hypothalamic circuits for response to pheromones may attract gay males to the scent produced by the sweat glands of men and plays a role in their sexual orientation." (And LA Fitness workout mania.)
"Spatial tasks: gay men perform more like straight women. Identical twin pairs are more likely to share sexual orientation than fraternal twin pairs. Thirty-five percent of sexual orientation is attributable to genetic influences.
"The asymmetrical size of the two brain hemispheres that is characteristic of straight male brains is not observed in gay male brains. In this respect, gay male brains were more like female brains. Swedish research studies suggest that there are differences between gay and straight male brains that are not directly involved in sexual attraction."
Bridge, brunch, ballet anyone? Football, golf, tight end, who?