On brains blown by orgasm

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Women's Brains Really Are Blown By Orgasms - and alcohol makes things easier An orgasm is literally a mind-blowing experience for a woman, scientists have revealed. Much of her brain shuts down when she reaches a sexual climax. The discovery was made during experiments in the Netherlands when couples' brains were scanned during lovemaking. Neuroscientist Dr Gert Holstege, from the University of Groningen said it appeared that shutting down the brain during orgasm ensured that obstacles such as fear and stress did not get in the way. "When you are fearful or have a very high level of anxiety, then it's hard to have sex because during sex you really have to give yourself and let go." Men were studied in the same way but because the male orgasm typically takes such a short time it was difficult to obtain meaningful brain scan data. A total of 13 women and 11 men, ranging in age from 19 to 49, took part in the experiments at Dr Holstege's laboratory. Since it was vital to remain completely still in the scanner, volunteers had to have their heads restrained while being stimulated. The rest of the body was free to move. Participants lay naked on a table with their head inside the scanner - but had to wear socks to avoid cold feet. And there could be a connection with the aphrodisiac effect of alcohol. "Alcohol brings down the fear level," said Dr Holstege. "Everyone knows if you give alcohol to a woman it makes things easier." Faking it "Women can imitate orgasm quite well," Gert Holstege told told the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology. "But there is nothing really happening in the brain." He and colleagues took brain scans of 13 women and 11 men, aged 19-49 who had volunteered for the study, while they were being sexually stimulated by their partner and during an orgasm and compared them to images of their brains at rest. "We wanted to know what the brain was doing during orgasm," Holstege said. When women genuinely achieved an orgasm, areas of the brain involved in fear and emotion were deactivated. Those areas stayed alert however when women were faking it. The researchers also found that the cortex, which is linked with consciousness, is active during a fake orgasm but not during the real thing. "The deactivation of these very important parts of the brain might be the most important thing necessary to have an orgasm," said Holstege. "It means that if you are fearful or at a very high level of anxiety, then it is very difficult to have sex because you really have to let yourself go," he added. The brain scans for men during orgasm were less conclusive, according to Holstege. But they did show that different parts of the male and female brain are activated and deactivated during sexual stimulation. The researchers found less deactivation in the males in the areas of the brain linked to emotion and fear when they were sexually stimulated. They are now planning further studies to compared the male and female brains during orgasm. see also this earlier posting and another story we carried concerning the smell of sex.
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Women's Brains Really Are Blown By Orgasms