A study by Hamann, et al., (2004) below showed that the brain’s amygdala activity increases in women during orgasm, but decreases in men during orgasm. This is interesting research particularly as it relates to issues that affect the amygdala and women’s difficulty in orgasming. Such issues that affect the amygdala include sexual trauma and childhood sexual abuse.
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Gunduz-Cinar, O. (2021). The endocannabinoid system in the amygdala and modulation of fear. Progress in Neuro-Psychopharmacology and Biological Psychiatry, 105, 110116. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pnpbp.2020.110116
Hamann, S., Herman, R. A., Nolan, C. L., Wallen, K. (2004). Men and women differ in amygdala response to visual sexual stimuli. Nature Neuroscience, 7(4), 411-416. doi:10.1038/nn1208
Miller, E. K., Freedman, D. J., & Wallis, J. D. (2002). The prefrontal cortex: categories, concepts and cognition. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 357(1424), 1123–1136. doi:10.1098/rstb.2002.1099
Motofei, I.G., Rowland, D.L. (2014). The ventral-hypothalamic input route: a common neural network for abstract cognition and sexuality. BJU Int; 113: 296-303. DOI: 10.1111/bju.12399
Ruesink, G. B., & Georgiadis, J. R. (2017). Brain Imaging of Human Sexual Response: Recent Developments and Future Directions. Current sexual health reports, 9(4), 183–191. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11930-017-0123-4
Salamone, J. D., & Correa, M. (2012). The Mysterious Motivational Functions of Mesolimbic Dopamine. Neuron, 76(3), 470–485. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuron.2012.10.021
Scherma, M., Masia, P., Satta, V., Fratta, W., Fadda, P., & Tanda, G. (2019). Brain activity of anandamide: a rewarding bliss?. Acta pharmacologica Sinica, 40(3), 309–323. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41401-018-0075-x
Wise, N. J., Frangos, E., & Komisaruk, B. R. (2017). Brain Activity Unique to Orgasm in Women: An fMRI Analysis. The Journal of Sexual Medicine, 14(11), 1380–1391. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jsxm.2017.08.014
