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\nScientists at Rutger University in New Jersey have created a map of a woman’s brain during an orgasm. They monitored a woman who masturbated in a functional MRI machine and created a digital map of the results. It’s quite an impressive bit of work and may help better understand why some women can’t achieve orgasm.<\/p>\n
The Guardian<\/a> reports that activity changes in 80 different sections of the brain during stimulation and orgasm. Their description of it and sequence of sensation may sound familiar to women:<\/p>\n As the animation plays, activity first builds up in the genital area of the sensory cortex, a response to being touched in that region. Activity then spreads to the limbic system, a collection of brain structures involved in emotions and long-term memory.<\/p>\n As the orgasm arrives, activity shoots up in two parts of the brain called the cerebellum and the frontal cortex, perhaps because of greater muscle tension. During orgasm, activity reaches a peak in the hypothalamus, which releases a chemical called oxytocin that causes pleasurable sensations and stimulates the uterus to contract. Activity also peaks in the nucleus accumbens, an area linked to reward and pleasure.<\/p>\n After orgasm, the activity in all these regions gradually calms down.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Not only is this is an amazing scientific achievement, it’s also an impressive sexual achievement for the woman involved. MRI machines are horribly noisy, often uncomfortable and so magnetic that you can’t take anything metal in there. So no vibrators. This woman managed to get off, by hand, in a big noisy machine with lots of people watching. Bravo, I say.<\/p>\n In a related article, here’s Kayt Sukels first-person account of having an orgasm in an MRI for science<\/a>. She reveals a particularly tricky aspect of the process – keeping still. You can’t move your head around or it will mess up the data. She actually had her face enclosed in a metal cage, on top of all the other stuff. Amazing. <\/p>\n I’ll be honest, I’d never previously considered the amount of movement in my orgasm habits prior to that conversation. I started to worry that I might not be up to the task. But when I mentioned my fears, Wise laughed.<\/p>\n “I know you can do it. Just practice,” she said. “You know what they say. Practice makes perfect!”<\/p>\n For the next two weeks, I did just that. To help optimise my body movement for fMRI, I attached a small bell \u2013 an ornament belonging to my cat \u2013 to my forehead with some duct tape.<\/p>\n Wise was right. With practice I diminished any jingling sound to something manageable, no matter how raucous I may have felt on the inside. And once she and Komisaruk had bolted me to the scanner bed, while it wasn’t easy to work up to an orgasm, I found it wasn’t quite as difficult as I had imagined.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Scientists at Rutger University in New Jersey have created a map of a woman’s brain during an orgasm. They monitored a woman who masturbated in a functional MRI machine and created a digital map of the results. It’s quite an impressive bit of work and may help better understand why some women can’t achieve orgasm. The Guardian reports that activity changes in 80 different sections of the brain during stimulation Read More …<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[542,588,699,856],"class_list":["post-2646","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sex-and-women","tag-mri","tag-orgasm","tag-science","tag-women"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t