BRAIN SEX: WHICH BITS DO WHAT?

Sex begins in the head. The brain dominates our sexual behavior steps and variations; partner choice, sexual desire, arousal, ejaculation, and cuddling after sex. Here is everything you need to know about brain sex, including the difference between sex in men and women.

Several neuroimaging studies on individual sexual habits are ongoing, and more will come. The findings are combined for meta-analysis to enable the identification of brain-activated sites. This article highlights the sexual arousal neural model, culminating in orgasm, and common factors and differences between men's and women's brains following sexual arousal.

Sexual Arousal Neural Model

A study was conducted on hetero and homosexual men and some heterosexual women viewing sexy videos and pictures. Jordan et al. (2015) discovered sexual arousal in a four-component neurophenomenological model, as explained below;

Cognitive: Appraisal and Perception

In the cognitive component, you perceive the sexual visual stimulus, imagine its nature, and concentrate. This can result in mental rehearsal in doing the sexual behavior. The main parts of recognizing sexual stimuli are the ventromedial prefrontal cortex- VM PFC, linked to the limbic emotion, reward system, and senses. It alters the sexual stimulus focus, increasing the activity seen in visual processing locations, such as the occipital and temporal lobes.

Emotional Component

Amygdala in a sexual circumstance handles the emotional content. It works with vmPFC to regulate attention and sensory procession. Its emotional processing function is attached to the brain's motivational areas that control sexual behavior. However, Amygdala is deactivated in orgasm and physical stimulation experiments. Scientists believe such deactivation contributes to indiscriminate sexual behavior and hypersexuality among people with Bucy syndrome. This component isn't considered emotional as it suggests because the more emotions of physical excitement experienced results in a higher turn-on.

Psychological Component

Psychological arousal involves genital reactions, blood pressure soaring, heart racing, and hormonal changes during sexual sensitization. It's brain-controlled. The model claims that the hypothalamus, anterior insula, and anterior cingulate cortex ACC participate in hormonal responses and autonomic reactions during arousal. The hypothalamus controlling the central nervous system in men is connected to penile responses and sexual arousal to stimuli.

Motivational Component

The motivational and emotional components mainly rely on the dopamine limbic system. Motivation is consistent in the thalamus, ACC, hypothalamus, and parietal cortex. Sexual goals are processed in the limbic areas, for example, sexual desires and urges, and reward feelings. The ACC causes an erection, whereas the striatum is the main emotional-motivational component in arousal.

Difference Between Men and Women

While male heterosexual studies are the most dominant in literature, men and women have active brain areas during sexual orientation and arousal. Kobayashi et al. (2021) indicated that women are weaker to visual erotic triggers, which goes across several sexual neuroimaging research. Only a few studies comparing male and female individuals showed discreet sex variations in brain activation during sexual activity. There is a need for more research to note reliable findings clearly and if there are other existing sex differences.

Context Matters

The visual sexual stimuli context and format utilized in neuroimaging studies may not sufficiently have an average woman steamed up as the average man when exposed to visually sexy stimuli. This implies that women are more complicated sexually. Some studies indicate that women show more powerful neural reactions than men, mainly in the sweat pheromones smell of sexual partners. Furthermore, women's reaction to mood video types was stronger after exposure to sexy videos that expressed moods, such as telling an emotional story or component or a created live scene, including showcasing genitalia or intercourse. Their least arousal time is the follicular period, possibly the fertile phase, making women cautious and picky when obliging to a sexual experience. 

Orgasm and Brain Activation Technique

Studies demonstrate similarities in brain deactivations, patterns, and discreet activations that differ from how partners achieve orgasm. In men and women, the genitals are connected to four different nerve regions that boost the excitatory signals to the brain during an orgasm. Afterward, almost all brain areas light up, except the Amygdala and vmPFC, which deactivate. The shutdown is said to involve sexual disinhibition needed for a climax temporarily. This steals the need that controls our critical thinking and behavior.

Sexual Preference

Homosexual and heterosexual men have stronger image activation of the sex they prefer than the non-preferred. However, women's reactions are the same in both cases and lack a difference between sexual alignments. 

Neurochemical Sex Call

We can't overlook the neurochemical goodies coming from the love buzz before and after getting to the climax. The difference in how partner's bodies react to the hormone rush, such as endorphins, oxytocin, and prolactin, causes controversy and confusion. This neurochemical rush is associated with multiple functions, such as cuddling behavior, bonding, and initiating successful sexual reproduction chances.

What The Future Suggests About Brain sex and Neuroimaging

What are the future implications of brain sex and neuroimaging? Studies have discovered clues in comprehending brain sex and arousal in men and women. To offer valuable insights, more developments should be given in emotional, cognitive, psychological, and emotional sexual arousal factors. The good news is that more studies about sexual arousal can help health issues, including sexual offending and disorders among people. 

The Bottom Line

Most information about the brain's action on sex lives is from studies undertaken on animals, such as mammals and rodents. Animals and human sexuality may differ, but their implicated brain region relate. However, this article has mainly mentioned studies to do with human participation. It has indicated the major parts actively involved during various sexual activities and orientations. The information is knowledgeable and helps grasp what happens to your body during different sexual activities.

References

Jordan, K., Fromberger, P., Müller, J. L., Ralph, N., Rich, P., Turner, D., & Briken, P. (2015). Could we measure sexual interest using functional imaging?. Sexual offender treatment, 10(1), 1-29.Kobayashi, M., Nakamura, K., & Watanabe, K. (2021). Sex Differences in the Motivation for Viewing Sexually Arousing Images. Evolutionary Psychological Science, 7(3), 273-283.