Ivanka Savic Berglund

Ivanka Savic Berglund (born 1953) is a Serbian-Swedish neuroscientist, a professor of neurology and chief physician at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden, and an adjunct professor in the neurology department at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).

Savic is a co-founder and member of the Stockholm Brain Institute's executive committee.

Scientific research MRI scans of the human brain are a key technology in Savic's research.

Epilepsy During her doctoral thesis, Savic investigated the GABA benzodiazepine receptor's role in temporal lobe epilepsy and helped to develop a new and internationally used method to pre-surgically diagnose the epileptogenic region. Neuroscientist Simon LeVay included her research in his book Gay, Straight, and the Reason Why, and discusses its relevance to other neuroscience research related to sexual orientation.

Savic and her colleagues also carried out research on brain activity in gay and straight men in response to "putative human pheromones".

Gender identity Savic has also studied the brains of transgender people. Her research suggests that transgender men and women have weaker connections between the two areas of the brain that process the perception of self and one's own body compared to cisgender persons. Savic has said these connections seem to improve after the person receives cross-hormone treatment.

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