Knowing the differences in the sexual response of the male and female brain is a great enigma for scientists. However, a study published in The Journal Science Medicine finally provides enlightening data about which regions of the female brain are activated during sexual intercourse.
Brain response to sexual arousal: three levels of measurement
The methodology of this study was, first of all, to measure genital temperature continuously, using infrared thermal images , while the study subjects, separated into groups of men and women, watched fragments of films with different content (erotic and humorous). ).
Other measures recorded included changes in subjective sexual arousal , as well as answers to specific questions related to their personal taste for what they were observing and their level of craving for sexual stimuli.
With functional magnetic resonance was achieved measure brain activity, defined as the dependent response the oxygen level in blood (BOLD, blood oxygen level-dependent).
Results: the brain-genital relationship is stronger in women
The results were therefore obtained from these three records: the BOLD response, genital temperature and subjective sexual arousal.
Consistent with the researchers’ hypothesis, BOLD activity in various brain regions was directly correlated with variations in genital temperature in both men and women.
Despite this, activation in women was more widespread than in men, including different brain areas, such as the anterior and posterior cingulate cortex , the right cerebellum , the insula , the frontal operculum, and the paracingulate gyrus.
Thus, examination of the strength of the correlation between the BOLD response and genital temperature, showed that women had a more intense brain-genital relationship, compared to men, in various brain regions.
No brain region was shown in which men showed stronger brain-genital correlations than women.
In short, although the data clearly show greater brain work during sexual arousal in women than in men, providing greater knowledge about the neurophysiological processes involved, we cannot ignore that more research is needed in order to examine the specific brain regions that are involved. involved in each process. Only in this way can a clinical application of the findings be reached, such as in the case of sudden brain damage and its re-education or rehabilitation.
Mayte Parada, Marina Gérard, Kevin Larcher, Alain Dagher, Yitzchak M. Binik. How Hot Are They? Neural Correlates of Genital Arousal: An Infrared Thermographic and Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Study of Sexual Arousal in Men and Women. February 2018 Volume 15, Issue 2, Pages 217–229. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jsxm.2017.12.006
