Cerebral Activation Associated with Sexual Arousal in Response to a Pornographic Clip: A 15O–H2O PET Study in Heterosexual Men

Increased Occupancy of Dopamine Receptors in Human Striatum during Cue-Elicited Cocaine Craving

“…In addition, the methodology used in this study to measure binding potential changes in dopaminergic systems during cocaine craving may prove useful in investigations of other motivational states linked to dopamine, including reward associated with addiction to drugs (Wexler et al, 2001), food (Wang et al, 2001(Wang et al, , 2002Wise, 2004), sex (Bocher et al, 2001;Mouras et al, 2003;Redouté et al, 2000), alcohol Heinz et al, 2004), and gambling (Hollander et al, 2005;Reuter et al, 2005;Crockford et al, 2005).…”

Apomorphine-induced brain modulation during sexual stimulation: a new look at central phenomena related to erectile dysfunction

“…15 Activation of associative cortices endows the cognitive and emotional contents. 15,16,24 A SPECT study during orgasm in healthy males also showed a right prefrontal rCBF increase. 26 PET studies in normal volunteers on the effects of apomorphine alone contributed to the in vivo demonstration of the systems involved in dopamine regulation.…”

“…These results are in agreement with other reports in literature of visually evoked sexual arousal in males showing bilateral activation of prefrontal areas, parietal lobes and, mainly, the occipital and inferior temporal, vision related, regions. [15][16][17][24][25] It has been proposed that human sexual arousal is a multifactor process comprising inter-related components. Among these there are the cognitive, emotional, motivational and physiological components, which concern different and specific cortical and …”

Magnetic Resonance Techniques in Study of Sexual Stimuli Processing in Paedophilia

“…Is known that in normal sexual functioning the frontal and temporal cortices are involved in the modulation of drive, initiation, and sexual activation, subcortical structures including the hippocampus, the amygdala, the septal complex and the hypothalamus are implicated in the modulation of sexual behaviours and genital responses. Modern imaging techniques allow the in vivo observation of brain activation correlated with sensory or cognitive processing and emotional states (Krueger et al, 2005) Today the neuroimaging studies in normal sexual functioning confirmed the involvement of inferior temporal cortex, the orbitofrontal cortex, the inferior and superior parietal lobules, the cingulate cortex, the anterior cingulated cortex, the insula, and the hypothalamus in the processing of visual sexual stimuli (Arnow et al, 2002;Bocher et al, 2001;Ferrettiet al, 2005; www.intechopen.com Hamann et al, 2004;Holstege et al, 2003;Karama et al, 2002;Mouras et al, 2003;Redoute et al, 2000).In summary, that the cortical and subcortical structures are implicated in the regulation of sexual arousal and in the processing of visual sexual stimuli. Currently the available data concerning the links between brain anomalies and deviant sexuality, between them the paedophilia has been obtained by means of four main approaches: 1.…”