Men and women differ in amygdala response to visual sexual stimuli

2004 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 411-416 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephan Hamann ◽  
Rebecca A Herman ◽  
Carla L Nolan ◽  
Kim Wallen
Keyword(s):  
Men And Women ◽  
Sexual Stimuli ◽  
Amygdala Response ◽  
Visual Sexual Stimuli

scholarly journals Neural substrates of sexual arousal are not sex dependent

2019 ◽  
Vol 116 (31) ◽  
pp. 15671-15676 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ekaterina Mitricheva ◽  
Rui Kimura ◽  
Nikos K. Logothetis ◽  
Hamid R. Noori
Keyword(s):  
Sex Differences ◽  
Sexual Orientation ◽  
Sexual Arousal ◽  
Visual Stimuli ◽  
Brain Regions ◽  
Neural Basis ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
Biological Sex ◽  
Sexual Stimuli ◽  
Visual Sexual Stimuli

Sexual arousal is a dynamical, highly coordinated neurophysiological process that is often induced by visual stimuli. Numerous studies have proposed that the cognitive processing stage of responding to sexual stimuli is the first stage, in which sex differences occur, and the divergence between men and women has been attributed to differences in the concerted activity of neural networks. The present comprehensive metaanalysis challenges this hypothesis and provides robust quantitative evidence that the neuronal circuitries activated by visual sexual stimuli are independent of biological sex. Sixty-one functional magnetic resonance imaging studies (1,850 individuals) that presented erotic visual stimuli to men and women of different sexual orientation were identified. Coordinate-based activation likelihood estimation was used to conduct metaanalyses. Sensitivity and clustering analyses of averaged neuronal response patterns were performed to investigate robustness of the findings. In contrast to neutral stimuli, sexual pictures and videos induce significant activations in brain regions, including insula, middle occipital, anterior cingulate and fusiform gyrus, amygdala, striatum, pulvinar, and substantia nigra. Cluster analysis suggests stimulus type as the most, and biological sex as the least, predictor for classification. Contrast analysis further shows no significant sex-specific differences within groups. Systematic review of sex differences in gray matter volume of brain regions associated with sexual arousal (3,723 adults) did not show any causal relationship between structural features and functional response to visual sexual stimuli. The neural basis of sexual arousal in humans is associated with sexual orientation yet, contrary to the widely accepted view, is not different between women and men.

scholarly journals Association between Psychopathological Dimensions and Sexual Functioning/Sexual Arousal in Young Adults

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (7) ◽  
pp. 3584
Author(s):  
Franklin Soler ◽  
Reina Granados ◽  
Ana I. Arcos-Romero ◽  
Cristóbal Calvillo ◽  
Ana Álvarez-Muelas ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Young Adults ◽  
Sexual Arousal ◽  
Sexual Functioning ◽  
Positive Influence ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
Sexual Stimuli ◽  
General Terms ◽  
Subjective Sexual Arousal ◽  
Negative Effect ◽  
Visual Sexual Stimuli

Psychological-psychiatric factors have a different effect on sexual functioning in men and women. This research aimed to examine the association between psychopathological dimensions and dimensions of sexual functioning in Spanish young adults in two studies. Study 1 examined sexual functioning and psychopathological dimensions in 700 women and 516 men. Study 2 conducted an experimental laboratory task to evaluate subjective sexual arousal and genital sensations when watching visual sexual stimuli in a subsample of participants from Study 1 (143 women and 123 men). As a result, the first study showed that depression and anxiety-related symptoms had a negative effect, both in men and women, and having a partner had a positive influence on the dimensions of sexual functioning. The second study showed that anxiety symptoms were positively associated with subjective sexual arousal in both men and women, and anxiety was associated with the assessment of genital sensations in men. The differences between the results of anxiety may be explained because sexual arousal was evaluated in general terms in Study 1, whereas it was evaluated as a state in Study 2. These findings confirm that the presence of psychopathological symptoms contributes to sexual functioning, as well as the necessity of strengthening mental illness prevention programs that include sexual health components.

scholarly journals Accurate sex classification from neural responses to sexual stimuli

2022 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vesa Juhani Putkinen ◽  
Sanaz Nazari-Farsani ◽  
Tomi Karjalainen ◽  
Severi Santavirta ◽  
Matthew Hudson ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Sex Differences ◽  
Brain Activity ◽  
Activity Patterns ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
Sexual Stimuli ◽  
Dorsal Attention Network ◽  
Film Clips ◽  
Attentional Engagement ◽  
Visual Sexual Stimuli ◽  
Multivariate Pattern

Sex differences in brain activity evoked by sexual stimuli remain elusive despite robust evidence for stronger enjoyment of and interest towards sexual stimuli in men than in women. To test whether visual sexual stimuli evoke different brain activity patterns in men and women, we measured haemodynamic brain activity induced by visual sexual stimuli in two experiments in 91 subjects (46 males). In one experiment, the subjects viewed sexual and non-sexual film clips and dynamic annotations for nudity in the clips was used to predict their hemodynamic activity. In the second experiment, the subjects viewed sexual and non-sexual pictures in an event-related design. Males showed stronger activation than females in the visual and prefrontal cortices and dorsal attention network in both experiments. Furthermore, using multivariate pattern classification we could accurately predict the sex of the subject on the basis of the brain activity elicited by the sexual stimuli. The classification generalized across the experiments indicating that the sex differences were consistent across the experiments. Eye tracking data obtained from an independent sample of subjects (N = 110) showed that men looked longer than women at the chest area of the nude female actors in the film clips. These results indicate that visual sexual stimuli evoke discernible brain activity patterns in men and women which may reflect stronger attentional engagement with sexual stimuli in men than women.

At the Second Glance: Stability of Neural Responses Toward Visual Sexual Stimuli

2014 ◽  
Vol 11 (11) ◽  
pp. 2720-2737 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sina Wehrum‐Osinsky ◽  
Tim Klucken ◽  
Sabine Kagerer ◽  
Bertram Walter ◽  
Andrea Hermann ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Neural Responses ◽  
Sexual Stimuli ◽  
Visual Sexual Stimuli

scholarly journals Gender Differences in Implicit Processing of Sexual Stimuli

2016 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 107-124 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marieke Dewitte
Keyword(s):  
Gender Differences ◽  
Sexual Response ◽  
Implicit Processing ◽  
Personality Psychology ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
Avoidance Motivation ◽  
Sexual Information ◽  
Sexual Stimuli ◽  
Elaborative Processing ◽  
Sexually Explicit

The present studies investigated whether men and women differ in cognitive–motivational processing of sexual stimuli in order to better understand the commonly observed gender differences in sexual outcome variables. Because these processes often operate without conscious control, we focused specifically on automatic stimulus processing. Using a series of implicit tasks, we measured inhibition, attentional orientation, appraisal and approach–avoidance motivation regarding sexually explicit stimuli in male and female students. Results showed that men were more strongly motivated to approach sexual stimuli than women and were better able to inhibit sexual information as to prevent activation of the sexual response. With regard to attentional orientation, men were more easily drawn by sexual cues than women, yet only when the cues were presented long enough to allow more elaborative processing. No gender differences were found in the implicit evaluation of sexual information, although men and women did differ at the level of self–reported sexual evaluations. Our results indicate the importance of incorporating information–processing mechanisms and emotion regulation strategies into the conceptualization of the sexual response and promote further research on the specificity, robustness, predictive validity and malleability of the cognitive–motivational processes underlying sexual arousal. Copyright © 2015 European Association of Personality Psychology

Physiological response to visual sexual stimuli∗

1969 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 292-302 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jack D. Hain ◽  
Patrick H. Linton
Keyword(s):  
Physiological Response ◽  
Sexual Stimuli ◽  
Visual Sexual Stimuli

Subjective reward value of visual sexual stimuli is coded in human striatum and orbitofrontal cortex

2020 ◽  
Vol 393 ◽  
pp. 112792
Author(s):  
Sanja Klein ◽  
Onno Kruse ◽  
Charlotte Markert ◽  
Isabell Tapia León ◽  
Jana Strahler ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Orbitofrontal Cortex ◽  
Sexual Stimuli ◽  
Reward Value ◽  
Visual Sexual Stimuli

ORIGINAL RESEARCH—ANATOMY/PHYSIOLOGY: Assessment of Sexual Orientation Using the Hemodynamic Brain Response to Visual Sexual Stimuli

2009 ◽  
Vol 6 (6) ◽  
pp. 1628-1634 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jorge Ponseti ◽  
Oliver Granert ◽  
Olav Jansen ◽  
Stephan Wolff ◽  
Hubertus Mehdorn ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Orientation ◽  
Original Research ◽  
Brain Response ◽  
Sexual Stimuli ◽  
Visual Sexual Stimuli

scholarly journals Brain processing of visual sexual stimuli in human males

2000 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 162-177 ◽  
Author(s):  
J�r�me Redout� ◽  
Serge Stol�ru ◽  
Marie-Claude Gr�goire ◽  
Nicolas Costes ◽  
Luc Cinotti ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Stimuli ◽  
Visual Sexual Stimuli ◽  
Brain Processing
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