This is your brain. This is your brain on sex. Any questions?

[The Straight Story]

Sex on the brain: Orgasms unlock altered consciousness


WITH a click and a whirr, I am pulled into the scanner. My head is strapped down and I have been draped with a blanket so that I may touch my nether regions - my clitoris in particular - with a certain degree of modesty. I am here neither for a medical procedure nor an adult movie. Rather, I am about to stimulate myself to orgasm while an fMRI scanner tracks the blood flow in my brain.

My actions are helping Barry Komisaruk at Rutgers University in Newark, New Jersey, and colleagues to tease apart the mechanisms underlying sexual arousal. In doing so, not only have they discovered that there is more than one route to orgasm, but they may also have revealed a novel type of consciousness - an understanding of which could lead to new treatments for pain (see Top-down pain relief).

Despite orgasm being a near-universal human phenomenon, we still don't know all that much about it. "The amount of speculation versus actual data on both the function and value of orgasm is remarkable," says Julia Heiman, director of the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender and Reproduction in Bloomington, Indiana.



http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21028124.600-sex-on-the-brain-orgasms-unlock-altered-consciousness.html

[TheWraith]

1. Sexual arousal as pain relief. Hmm.

Well, I have to say I would certainly find that more appealing than a hydrocodone.

[sharp_stick]

3. Now there's a comeback for the

"Not tonight honey I have a headache line"

[sharp_stick]

2. Couldn't be easy to do with all the noise those

things make never mind the folks hanging out in the control room sheet covered or not.

Fascinating look at the brain though, amazing pictures and results.

[RandySF]

4. Where can I sign up?

[lapislzi]

5. Orgasm = endorphin release

Simple, really.

It's also a cure for menstrual cramps, and can bring on labor.

[CoffeeCat]

6. Recent article about orgasms alleviating...

...restless leg syndrome.

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/discoblog/2011/04/02/a-new-effective-treatment-for-restless-leg-syndrome-masturbation/

[L0oniX]

9. ...and restless d*ck syndrome.

[buddysmellgood]

7. I could get addicted to a painkiller like that.

[BadgerKid]

8. Ceiling cat is watching...