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Finding men's cerebral G-spot could lead to new treatments for lost
libido
By Roger Dobson
16 October 2000
Scientists may have found man's cerebral G-spot. Brain mappers have
found the part of the brain that gets excited the most when a man is
sexually aroused by what he sees. When male volunteers were exposed
to blue movies, the little-understood claustrum area of their brains
lit up and became highly active. Researchers say this knowledge about
the way the brain handles the process of sexual arousal from visual
images may lead to better targeted treatments for people with sexual
problems. The scientists, who report their findings in the British science
journal Human Brain Mapping, say that although there have been theories
about how the brain is involved in sexual arousal, there has been no
detailed study. In the research, right-handed, healthy, heterosexual
male volunteers were exposed to a series of three-minute clips from
a variety of films while having their brains scanned to see which parts
responded. When an area of the brain is working, blood flow to that
part increases and a change in flow can be detected by scanning. Heart
rate, blood pressure and testosterone levels were also measured for
the study. The men's heads were kept in a fixed position by individually
moulded face masks. The researchers from Lyon who used brain-mapping
technology from Wellcome, said: "Video clips used were a series of photographic
stimuli of graded intensity non-sexually arousing, moderately arousing,
highly arousing, photographs representing women, and two sexually explicit
films depicting heterosexual coitus. "The claustrum displayed one of
the highest activations... There is now accumulating evidence of the
involvement of the claustrum in motivational processes... These results
should help to better identify, and potentially to better treat, the
functional changes characterising pathological alterations of sexual
desire." Tonmoy Sharma, of the Institute of Psychiatry in London, said
the study was a good one. "In evolutionary terms the claustrum is a
primitive area. The greater activation they found means there was greater
signal strength. Increased activation means that area is more involved
in it. In memory studies, for example, the hippocampus is more active,
more so than other areas," Professor Sharma said. The team says that
afterwards, the volunteers only commented on the beauty of those women
involved in clips of the moderately arousing images. When the more sexually
explicit images were shown, the men appeared oblivious to looks.
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