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Video shows surprising thing that happens to a woman’s brain during orgasm
Female orgasms have been a mystery for some time, but now scientists have a better indication of what actually goes on inside women’s heads.
Before, there were 3D videos of what happens in the brain when climax takes place – there had been a lot of misinformation regarding women and sex.
From not enjoying it, to confusion about the anatomy of where the clitoris was, G-spot questions, and acrogenous zone mapping – things changed plenty.
But now, researchers can see exactly how an orgasm impacts the female brain and body.
"The general aim of this research is to understand how the orgasm builds up from genital stimulation and what parts of the brain become recruited and finally build up into an orgasm," said Komisaruk, who presented the work at the Society for Neuroscience annual meeting in Washington, DC, on Monday.
The work has yet to be published in a peer-reviewed journal, but it reveals what brain regions are activated in the lead-up to orgasming.
Lead author Barry Komisaruk, professor of psychology at Rutgers University, explored the way female orgasms light up the brain in women who masturbated to completion inside of an MRI machine.
Because metal isn’t allowed in a machine due to the magnetism, either manual stimulation or a Lucite rod was used to achieve an orgasm.
What Komisaruk ultimately found was that activity in over 80 regions of the brain lit up in the lead-up to climaxing.
This includes areas like the prefrontal cortex, which is used for higher-order thinking.
However, what is interesting is that previous studies on the brain by Dutch researchers found no activity in the same region, leading to some conflicting conclusions.
“There’s an apparent contradiction in the literature,” Komisaruk said of the difference. “The group in Holland says that the frontal cortex goes down in activity during orgasm and we see that it goes up.”
But what could have caused the difference in results is that the Dutch study involved partners causing the women to orgasm, instead of it being the result of masturbation.
“It could be different [because] women inducing orgasm in themselves may involve executive control characteristic of the prefrontal cortex, whereas in partner-induced stimulation, women may surrender to their partner and that could be the basis for the reduction in activity,” he said.
The other areas of the brain that activate in the lead up to orgasm is the insula.
“Not only is [the insula] active during orgasm, it’s also active in response to pain,” Komisaruk said. “We see strong inhibitory interaction between orgasm and pain. During orgasm, women are much less sensitive to pain.”
He also linked the ‘O’ facial expression made by women when orgasming being linked to being similar to a reaction expressed by the feeling of pain.
The anterior cingulate was also apparently activated, which links to the insula, and then also the amygdala.
Oddly, the amygdala is heavily involved in the fear response, but can also work with a variety of emotions.
From there, the hippocampus lights up – which deals with memories, and can also help to light up other regions of the brain.
“The hippocampus is often involved in epileptic seizure activity,” said Komisaruk. “There’s a lot of similarity between seizures and orgasms in the sense that they involve many brain regions concurrently.”
The prefrontal cortex, which takes care of things like planning, abstract thoughts and behaviors, lit up.
An area responsible for bodily movement was next, and then the oxytocin love hormone area, known as the hypothalamus, came alive.
Finally, the brain’s ‘pleasure center’ was activated for the main event – orgasm
Then the brain returned to normal.
"We're using orgasm as a way of producing pleasure. If we can learn how to activate the pleasure regions of the brain, then that could have wider applications," he said, per the Guardian.