AT LONG LAST researchers in Europe have discovered what has long been suspected: brains of gays have structural and functional differences from those of "straight" people.

Two studies have concluded that lesbians have a lower proportion of grey matter in their more male-like brains than straight womenand that the brains of gay people have structural similarities to those of heterosexual women.

Gays tend to exhibit the same powerful response as straight women to the sex hormones released in male sweat, according to the studies.

A team at University College London used magnetic resonance imaging to look at the brains of 80 men and women, including 16 gay men and 15 lesbians. They found that lesbians had a "male-like" proportion and distribution of grey matter in their brain when compared with heterosexual women.

"In homosexual women the perirhinal cortex grey matter displayed a male-like structural pattern. The perirhinal area is associated with social and sexual behaviour," The Sunday Times quoted the British researchers as saying.