Friday, November 22, 2019

Sex study reveals orgasm secrets


Copenhagen - New research indicates that the parts of the brain which govern fear and anxiety are switched off when a woman is having an orgasm.


In the first study to map brain function during orgasm, scientists from the Netherlands also found that as a woman climaxes, an area of the brain that governs emotional control is also deactivated, but that fear, anxiety and emotional control zones are not switched off when the orgasm is being faked.
"The fact that there is no deactivation in faked orgasms means a basic part of a real orgasm is letting go. Women can imitate orgasm quite well, as we know, but there is nothing really happening in the brain," said neuroscientist Gert Holstege, presenting his findings on Monday at the annual meeting of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology.
In the study, Holstege and his colleagues at Groningen University recruited 11 men and 13 women, together with their respective partners.
The volunteers laid on a scanning machine bed and were injected with a dye that shows changes in brain function on a scan. For the men, the brain scanner tracked activity during rest, during erection, during manual stimulation by their partner and then during ejaculation, brought on by the partner's hand.
For the women, the scanner measured brain activity during rest, while they faked an orgasm, while their partners stimulated their clitoris and while they experienced genuine orgasm.
Holstege said he had trouble getting reliable results from the study on men because the scanning machine needs activities lasting at least two minutes to record an activity and the men's climaxes didn't last anywhere near two minutes.
Therefore, he could not reliably compare the scans before and during climax.
However, the scans showed activation of reward centers in the brain for men, but not for women.
Holstege said his results on women were more clear.
When women faked orgasm, the cortex - the part of the brain governing conscious action - lit up. It was not activated during genuine orgasm.
Even the body movements made during a real orgasm were unconscious and did not involve the "thinking" part of the brain, Holstege said.
The most striking results, however, were seen in the parts of the brain that shut down, or deactivated. Deactivation was visible in the amygdala, a part of the brain thought to be involved in the neurobiology of fear and anxiety.
"During orgasm, there was strong, enormous deactivation in the brain. During fake orgasm, there was no deactivation of the brain at all. None," Holstege said.
Shutting down the brain during orgasm may ensure that obstacles such as fear and stress did not get in the way, Holstege proposed.
"Deactivation of these very important parts of the brain might be the most important necessity for having an orgasm," he said.
Donald Pfaff, a professor of neurobiology and behavior at Rockefeller University in New York, said Holstege's interpretation of the scans is reasonable.
"It makes poetic sense," said Pfaff, who was not connected with the research. - Sapa-AP

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