Science can now create ‘lesbian mice’, a group of Chinese researchers have claimed.

In a new study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), it suggests the neurotransmitter serotonin plays an important role in determining your sexuality.

Researchers from Peking University in China bred female mice with a lack of serotonin, and they ended up choosing to prefer the company of other females.

As reported by The Atlantic, lead researcher Shasha Zhang said the mice with the ‘mutations’ (a generic term for manipulation of genes) showed preferences for sniffing the head and genital areas of other female mice.

She added: ‘Females displayed strong mounting preferences toward the females, mounted female targets with shorter latency, higher frequency and longer duration.’

Zhang and her team concluded by not having certain neurons, serotonin ‘caused a reversal of sexual preference, revealing a role for [serotonin] in regulating sexual preference.’

In a similar experiment, scientists discovered shutting off serotonin in male mice simply turns off their sexual desire entirely.

The researchers warned the experiment was on sexual behavior, and said anyone looking for a ‘gay cure’ will not find it here.

The female ‘attraction’ was genetic, something the mice were born with, and not something changed later in development.

Also as serotonin is so complex, which affects humans in everything from mood to sleep to sex, it is unlikely it would affect us in the same way.

It is the latest in a long line of exploring the origins of sexuality in science, with scientists last year suggesting epi-genetics could determine a person’s orientation before they are born.

In the United States, a Gallup poll released earlier this month found nearly one in two (47%) now believe being gay is something people are born with, nature, compared to 33% who say it is a ‘preference’ based on environmental factors, nurture.

It is a significant increase in opinion from 1978, when it was found only 13% believed people were born gay.