Neuroanatomical correlates of penile erection evoked by photographic stimuli in human males

Neural Correlates of Antidepressant-Related Sexual Dysfunction: A Placebo-Controlled fMRI Study on Healthy Males Under Subchronic Paroxetine and Bupropion

“…In a PET study using erotic stimulation, activation of this brain region was found to correlate with penile tumescence (Redoute et al, 2000), and a recent study using fMRI could replicate this finding by demonstrating that the activation of the MCC correlated with penile tumescence in the early phase of sexual arousal and preceded physiological reactions (Moulier et al, 2006). Georgiadis et al (2010) reported blood flow changes in MCC and lateral hypothalamus that correlated with penis stimulation and perceived sexual arousal.…”

“…However, a significant correlation ( Figure 5) was observed between total MGH-SFQ score and averaged parameter estimates obtained from the pMCC region (voxels significant in the omnibus F-test at po0.05 corrected). This region had been selected for further investigation based on previous literature showing correlations between brain activation in the MCC with behavioral measures of sexual functioning (Redoute et al, 2000;Moulier et al, 2006;Georgiadis et al, 2010). The more the brain activation decreased under paroxetine compared with placebo, the more overall ratings of sexual dysfunction (paroxetine minus placebo) increased (r ¼ 0.42; p ¼ 0.041).…”

“…Stimulation with erotic video clips has already been demonstrated as a reliable tool to investigate brain regions related to sexual functioning (Redoute et al, 2000) and to contrast medication effects on these brain regions in patients suffering from depression (Kim et al, 2009). Under placebo, we expected to find activation in those brain regions that are reported to be active during erotic stimulation according to previous fMRI studies, that is, the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), lateral occipital cortex, insula, amygdala, hypothalamus, thalamus, and the ventral striatum (Arnow et al, 2002;Ferretti et al, 2005;Moulier et al, 2006;Mouras, 2004;Redoute et al, 2000;Walter et al, 2008a, b). In line with previous studies of blunted ventral striatal activation under SSRIs (McCabe et al, 2010), paroxetine was expected to exert inhibitory effects on reward system activation, the latter being identified as specifically elicited by erotic stimulation as a primary reward (Walter et al, 2008a).…”

The relationship between age and brain response to visual erotic stimuli in healthy heterosexual males

“…An fMRI study showed that the development of low levels of penile tumescence was related to brain regions that included the right medial prefrontal cortex, right and left orbitofrontal cortices, insula, paracentral lobules, right ventral lateral thalamic nucleus, right anterior cingulate cortex and regions involved in motor imagery and motor preparation. 14 The regions related to penile erection overlapped with the activated areas showing a contrast between the ERO and HA conditions in this study (see Supplementary information SI-3 and SI-4).…”

Brain potentials related to the human penile erection

“…2 Recently, with the advent of neuroimaging techniques, activity in several cortical and subcortical brain areas was found to be correlated with penile response. [3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12] Furthermore, different stages of penile erection have been successfully associated with different brain areas: Ferretti et al 4 found sustained erection to be correlated with increased activity in the insula, secondary somatosensory cortex, anterior cingulate and the amygdala. Erection onset was also accompanied by elevated activity in the hypothalamus.…”