Arnow Bruce A, Desmond John E, Banner Linda L, Glover Gary H, Solomon Ari, Polan Mary Lake, Lue Tom F, Atlas Scott W
Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, Calif. 94305-5722, USA.
Brain. 2002 May;125(Pt 5):1014-23. doi: 10.1093/brain/awf108.
Despite the brain's central role in sexual function, little is known about relationships between brain activation and sexual response. In this study, we employed functional MRI (fMRI) to examine relationships between brain activation and sexual arousal in a group of young, healthy, heterosexual males. Each subject was exposed to two sequences of video material consisting of explicitly erotic (E), relaxing (R) and sports (S) segments in an unpredictable order. Data on penile turgidity was collected using a custom-built pneumatic pressure cuff. Both traditional block analyses using contrasts between sexually arousing and non-arousing video clips and a regression using penile turgidity as the covariate of interest were performed. In both types of analyses, contrast images were computed for each subject and these images were subsequently used in a random effects analysis. Strong activations specifically associated with penile turgidity were observed in the right subinsular region including the claustrum, left caudate and putamen, right middle occipital/ middle temporal gyri, bilateral cingulate gyrus and right sensorimotor and pre-motor regions. Smaller, but significant activation was observed in the right hypothalamus. Few significant activations were found in the block analyses. Implications of the findings are discussed. Our study demonstrates the feasibility of examining brain activation/sexual response relationships in an fMRI environment and reveals a number of brain structures whose activation is time-locked to sexual arousal.
尽管大脑在性功能中起着核心作用，但关于大脑激活与性反应之间的关系却知之甚少。在本研究中，我们采用功能磁共振成像（fMRI）来研究一组年轻、健康的异性恋男性的大脑激活与性唤起之间的关系。每位受试者以不可预测的顺序观看两段视频材料，其中包含明确的色情（E）、放松（R）和体育（S）片段。使用定制的气压袖带收集阴茎勃起的数据。我们既进行了使用性唤起视频片段与非性唤起视频片段对比的传统组块分析，也进行了以阴茎勃起作为感兴趣协变量的回归分析。在这两种分析类型中，为每位受试者计算对比图像，随后将这些图像用于随机效应分析。在右侧岛叶下区域观察到与阴茎勃起特异性相关的强烈激活，该区域包括屏状核、左侧尾状核和壳核、右侧枕中/颞中回、双侧扣带回以及右侧感觉运动和运动前区。在右侧下丘脑观察到较小但显著的激活。在组块分析中发现的显著激活较少。我们对研究结果的意义进行了讨论。我们的研究证明了在功能磁共振成像环境中研究大脑激活/性反应关系的可行性，并揭示了一些其激活与性唤起时间同步锁定的脑结构。
