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.

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

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

Psychophysiological and subjective sexual arousal to visual sexual stimuli in new women

2005 ◽  
Vol 26 (4) ◽  
pp. 237-244 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lori A. Brotto ◽  
Darlynne Gehring ◽  
Carolin Klein ◽  
Boris B Gorzalka ◽  
Sydney Thomson ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Arousal ◽  
New Women ◽  
Sexual Stimuli ◽  
Subjective Sexual Arousal ◽  
Visual Sexual Stimuli

SEX DIFFERENCES AND SIMILARITIES IN FREQUENCY AND INTENSITY OF SEXUAL DESIRE

2006 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 95-102 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pamela C. Regan ◽  
Leah Atkins
Keyword(s):  
Sex Differences ◽  
Sexual Desire ◽  
Empirical Work ◽  
Ethnically Diverse ◽  
Sexual Response ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
Biological Sex ◽  
The Past ◽  
Vital Component

Only within the past decade have social scientists commonly recognized the phenomenon of sexual desire as a distinct and vital component of human sexual response. Of the various factors believed to be associated with sexual desire, gender (biological sex) is presumed by many theorists to be one of the most important. Limited empirical work suggests that men experience desire more frequently than do women; however, sex differences in intensity or level of desire have yet to be examined. This study explored both the self-reported frequency and intensity of sexual desire among an ethnically diverse sample of 676 men and women. As hypothesized, men reported experiencing a higher overall level of sexual desire than did women. Sex differences also were found with respect to frequency of sexual desire. Men reported experiencing sexual desire more often than did women and, when asked to estimate the actual frequency with which they experienced desire, men's estimated frequency (37 times per week) was significantly higher than women's (9 times per week). These results do not imply that men always feel desire or that women lack sexual desire. In fact, virtually every participant in this study reported feeling sexual desire on a regular basis. This suggests that desire may be the most universal sexual response experienced by both men and women.

Sex Differences in Processing Printed Advertisements

2004 ◽  
Vol 94 (3) ◽  
pp. 814-818 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sanjay Putrevu
Keyword(s):  
Sex Differences ◽  
Depth Of Processing ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
Persuasive Communications ◽  
College Age ◽  
Biological Sex ◽  
Processing Styles ◽  
Different Types

The success of using biological sex to divide or segment markets requires a thorough understanding of how men and women process and respond to advertisements and other persuasive communications. Toward this end, this research ( N = 64; 32 men and 32 women) studied how college-age men and women respond to printed advertisements. There were no differences between the sexes in recall and recognition of claims in advertisements, but men and women generated different types of message relevant thoughts—women generated more category thoughts and men generated more attribute thoughts, suggesting that, while women and men might not differ in the depth of processing, they might use different processing styles.

scholarly journals Sexual Orientation and Neuroanatomy: An MRI Study of Gray Matter Differences in Homosexual, Bisexual, and Heterosexual Women and Men

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Victoria Klimaj ◽  
Adam Safron ◽  
David Sylva ◽  
A.M. Rosenthal ◽  
Meng Li ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Sex Differences ◽  
Sexual Orientation ◽  
Heterosexual Men ◽  
Homosexual Men ◽  
Bisexual Women ◽  
Brain Areas ◽  
Whole Brain ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
Heterosexual Women ◽  
Subcortical Volumes

In this study, we attempted to replicate past work focusing on differences in neuroanatomical structures between heterosexual and homosexual men and women. We also performed the first analyses of sexual orientation and neuroanatomy to include bisexual men and women. Sex differences in raw subcortical volumes were consistent with past work and a broader literature on sex differences, showing larger raw subcortical volumes in male groups than female groups. However, we did not confirm past findings showing larger raw volumes in heterosexual than in homosexual men in the left thalamus or right thalamus. Additionally, we did not confirm past findings showing thicker cortices in heterosexual men than in homosexual men in visual/occipital areas (right cuneus, right lingual gyrus, right pericalcarine cortex) or a frontal area (right pars triangularis). Exploratory whole-brain analyses revealed several areas of difference between women that may be of interest for future confirmatory research. Bisexual women had smaller volumes in a region of the olfactory tubercule than heterosexual women as well as a thicker right anterior insula region than homosexual women. Homosexual women had smaller volumes in regions of the inferior parietal lobule (IPL) than both heterosexual women and bisexual women. The functional relevance of these brain areas in terms of understanding female sexual orientation is unclear. However, based on these areas, future work may wish to consider the potential social, emotional, attentional, interoceptive, or general reward-related characteristics that may differentiate women with different attraction patterns. In contrast to previous work, no differences were found between groups of men (heterosexual, bisexual, or homosexual) in any of our analyses. Finally, in terms of whole-brain analyses of sex differences, heterosexual women had both thicker cortices and larger (relative to the whole brain) gray matter volume than heterosexual men in the superior frontal gyrus, in contrast to large-scale studies of sex difference. Although statistically significant at a stringent threshold (FWE-corrected), our whole-brain findings should be interpreted and generalized with caution. The heterogeneity of patterns across analyses of sexual orientation and brain structure (and even across studies of sex/gender and brain structure) suggests that findings may potentially depend upon particular sample characteristics, and potentially Type 1 error due to the testing of many different brain areas.

scholarly journals Gender differences in aging: cognition, emotions, and neuroimaging studies

2002 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 197-210 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Gender Differences ◽  
Sex Differences ◽  
Brain Volume ◽  
Brain Regions ◽  
Brain Disorders ◽  
Resonance Imaging ◽  
Blood Flow Pattern ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
Brain Behavior

Gender and aging moderate brain-behavior relationships. Advances in neuroscience enable integration of neurobehavioral, neuroanatomic, and neurophysiology measures. Here we present neurobehavioral studies thai examine cognitive and emotion processing in healthy men and women and highlight the effects of sex differences and aqinq. Neuroanatomic studies with maqnetic resonance imaging (MRI) indicate that the progressive decrease in brain volume affects froniotemporal brain regions in men more than in Vi/omen, Functional imaging methods suggest sex differences in rate of blood flow, pattern of glucose metabolism, and receptor activity. The role of ovarian hormones is important in elucidating the observed relationships. A life span perspective on gender differences through the integration of available methodologies will advance understanding healthy people and the effects of brain disorders.

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