[An fMRI study on brain activation patterns of males and females during video sexual stimulation].
OBJECTIVE
To investigate the difference in the brain activation patterns of males and females during video sexual stimulation by functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI).


METHODS
The participants were 20 adult males and 20 adult females, all healthy, right-handed, and with no history of sexual function disorder and physical, psychiatric or neurological diseases. Blood-oxygen-level-dependent fMRI was performed using a 1.5 T MR scanner. Three-dimensional anatomical image of the entire brain were obtained by using a T1-weighted three-dimensional anatomical image spoiled gradient echo pulse sequence. Each person was shown neutral and erotic video sequences for 60 s each in a block-study fashion, i.e. neutral scenes--erotic scenes--neutral scenes, and so on. The total scanning time was approximately 7 minutes, with a 12 s interval between two subsequent video sequences in order to avoid any overlapping between erotic and neutral information.


RESULTS
The video sexual stimulation produced different results in the men and women. The females showed activation both in the left and the right amygdala, greater in the former than in the latter ([220.52 +/- 17.09] mm3 vs. [155.45 +/- 18.34] mm3, P < 0.05), but in the males only the left amygdala was activated. The males showed greater brain activation than the females in the left anterior cingulate gyrus ([420.75 +/- 19.37] mm3 vs. [310.67 +/- 10.53] mm3, P < 0.05), but less than the females in the splenium of the corpus callosum ([363.32 +/- 13.30] mm3 vs. [473.45 +/- 14.92] mm3, P < 0.01).


CONCLUSIONS
Brain activation patterns of males and females during video sexual stimulation are different, underlying which is presumably the difference in both the structure and function of the brain between men and women.
Yang
Bo
B
Department of Radiology, PLA General Hospital, Beijing 100853, China. bjyangbo@yahoo.com.cn
Zhang
Jin-shan
JS
Wang
Tao
T
Zhou
Yi-cheng
YC
Liu
Ji-hong
JH
Ma
Lin
L
D000328:Adult; D000679:Amygdala / Q000502:physiology; D001921:Brain / Q000502:physiology*; D001931:Brain Mapping; D003075:Coitus / Q000502:physiology*; D003337:Corpus Callosum / Q000502:physiology; D005260:Female; D006179:Gyrus Cinguli / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D012737:Sex Factors