Yang Lisa, Demetriou Lysia, Wall Matthew B, Mills Edouard Ga, Zargaran David, Sykes Mark, Prague Julia K, Abbara Ali, Owen Bryn M, Bassett Paul A, Rabiner Eugenii A, Comninos Alexander N, Dhillo Waljit S
Section of Endocrinology & Investigative Medicine, Division of Diabetes, Endocrinology and Metabolism, Department of Metabolism, Digestion and Reproduction, Faculty of Medicine, Imperial College London, United Kingdom.
Invicro, Hammersmith Hospital, London, United Kingdom.
JCI Insight. 2020 Feb 13;5(3):133633. doi: 10.1172/jci.insight.133633.
Successful reproduction is a fundamental physiological process that relies on the integration of sensory cues of attraction with appropriate emotions and behaviors and the reproductive axis. However, the factors responsible for this integration remain largely unexplored. Using functional neuroimaging, hormonal, and psychometric analyses, we demonstrate that the reproductive hormone kisspeptin enhances brain activity in response to olfactory and visual cues of attraction in men. Furthermore, the brain regions enhanced by kisspeptin correspond to areas within the olfactory and limbic systems that govern sexual behavior and perception of beauty as well as overlap with its endogenous expression pattern. Of key functional and behavioral significance, we observed that kisspeptin was most effective in men with lower sexual quality-of-life scores. As such, our results reveal a previously undescribed attraction pathway in humans activated by kisspeptin and identify kisspeptin signaling as a new therapeutic target for related reproductive and psychosexual disorders.
成功繁殖是一个基本的生理过程，它依赖于吸引力的感官线索与适当的情感、行为以及生殖轴的整合。然而，负责这种整合的因素在很大程度上仍未得到探索。通过功能神经影像学、激素和心理测量分析，我们证明生殖激素 kisspeptin 可增强男性大脑对嗅觉和视觉吸引力线索的反应活动。此外，kisspeptin 增强的脑区对应于嗅觉和边缘系统中控制性 行为和美感认知的区域，并且与其内源性表达模式重叠。具有关键功能和行为意义的是，我们观察到 kisspeptin 对生活质量得分较低的男性最为有效。因此，我们的研究结果揭示了人类中一条先前未被描述的由 kisspeptin 激活的吸引途径，并确定 kisspeptin 信号传导是相关生殖和性心理障碍的一个新的治疗靶点。
