Why are women able to tolerate more pain during the time before and during orgasm? A team of scientists from Rutgers University (USA) has found an answer to this question by showing, furthermore, that the female brain does not ‘turn off’ just before or during orgasm. The research has been published in The Journal of Sexual Medicine.
Much research has been done previously about the physical factor of male and female orgasm, but little – or much less – is known about what happens in the brain during sexual climax or orgasm, especially if we refer to women.
One reason there are so few studies on the subject is because most involve asking volunteers to put their inhibitions aside while masturbating inside a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) machine. Logically, the cold, noisy and mechanical cabin for this purpose is not exactly conducive to achieving the excitement of the participant.
However, this group of scientists tried to overcome this obstacle once again (it is likely that the ‘Masters of Sex’ series on the history of gynecologist William Masters and sexologist Virginia Johnson has come to mind), counting on the participation of 10 women of different ages, who were asked to stimulate themselves as the researchers observed the functioning of their brains from a control room. The women were asked to try to orgasm twice if they were able. Each and every one of the experiments was repeated a second time with male partners providing the stimulation. The female volunteers were also equipped with a special device to prevent their heads from moving, preventing their brain readings from blurring.
Thus, despite the clinical setting, most of the volunteers were able to achieve at least one orgasm, which allowed them to clearly observe what happened in the brain of the participants. The scientists found that, at the precipice of orgasm, the dorsal nucleus of the raphe (located in the midline of the brainstem) became more active.
An area of the brain becomes much more active
Previous research has shown that the dorsal nucleus of the raphe plays an important role in controlling the release of serotonin , which in addition to making us feel good, also serves as a pain reliever; This explains why women report feeling less sensitivity to pain just before and during orgasm.
But the experts also found something else: Instead of shutting down, most regions of the brain became much more active during stimulation and orgasm. This finding contradicts that of a team of scientists who in 1985 conducted similar experiments using a PET scanner and in whose study they reported having found evidence that various brain regions fell asleep during orgasm, which led them to affirm that women required of a distraction-free environment to have an orgasm. Now, using MRI imaging, we have discovered that not only is this not the case, but the opposite is true. Brain activity gradually increases until you reach orgasm, peaking at orgasm and then decreasing.
According to the authors, brain areas activated at orgasm included sensory, motor, reward, frontal cortical, and brainstem regions (such as the nucleus accumbens, insula, anterior cingulate cortex, cerebellum, or hippocampus).
Reference: Nan J. Wise et al. Brain Activity Unique to Orgasm in Women: An fMRI Analysis, The Journal of Sexual Medicine (2017). DOI: 10.1016 / j.jsxm.2017.08.014
