Men and women differ in amygdala response to visual sexual stimuli
@article{Hamann2004MenAW,
title={Men and women differ in amygdala response to visual sexual stimuli},
author={Stephan Hamann and Rebecca A. Herman and Carla L Nolan and Kim Wallen},
journal={Nature Neuroscience},
year={2004},
volume={7},
pages={411-416}
}Men are generally more interested in and responsive to visual sexually arousing stimuli than are women. Here we used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to show that the amygdala and hypothalamus are more strongly activated in men than in women when viewing identical sexual stimuli. This was true even when women reported greater arousal. Sex differences were specific to the sexual nature of the stimuli, were restricted primarily to limbic regions, and were larger in the left amygdala… Expand
Paper Mentions
Interventional Clinical Trial
The overall goal of this project is to identify the genetic, hormonal, and neurobiological
influences on paternal nurturing behavior and to determine if fathers' neural responses to… Expand
| Conditions | Healthy |
|---|---|
| Intervention | Drug |
530 Citations
Neural correlates of sexual arousal in heterosexual and homosexual women and men
- Psychology, Medicine
- Hormones and Behavior
- 2013
Results suggest that men tend to show more differentiated neural responses than do women to erotic photographs of one sex compared to the other sex, though women may not be entirely indifferent to which sex is depicted. Expand
Sex differences in the persistence of the amygdala response to negative material.
- Psychology, Medicine
- Social cognitive and affective neuroscience
- 2014
Men and men showed equivalent responses to novel negative material, but women showed a sustained amygdala response to familiar negative material relative to men, indicating that women's amygdala responses were more persistent over multiple repetitions of negative material. Expand
Neural Responses to Sexual Stimuli in Heterosexual and Homosexual Men and Women: Men’s Responses Are More Specific
- Psychology, Medicine
- Archives of sexual behavior
- 2019
The results provide the most direct evidence to date that men’s sexual arousal patterns are more gender specific than women’'s, as measured identically in men and women. Expand
Neural correlates of sexual arousal in homosexual and heterosexual men.
- Psychology, Medicine
- Behavioral neuroscience
- 2007
Both homosexual and heterosexual men exhibited category-specific arousal in brain activity, and within the amygdala, greater preference-related activity was observed in homosexual men, but it is unclear whether this is a cause or a consequence of their sexuality. Expand
A functional endophenotype for sexual orientation in humans
- Computer Science, Medicine
- NeuroImage
- 2006
It is proposed that this invariant response pattern in core regions of the human reward and motor system represents a functional endophenotype for sexual orientation independent of the gender of the observer and gender ofThe stimulus. Expand
Sex Differences in the Responses of the Human Amygdala
- Psychology, Medicine
- The Neuroscientist : a review journal bringing neurobiology, neurology and psychiatry
- 2005
Current findings from studies of sex differences in human amygdala response during emotion-related activities, such as formation of emotional memories and sexual behavior, are highlighted and how these findings contribute to the understanding of behavioral differences between men and women are considered. Expand
An fMRI Study of Responses to Sexual Stimuli as a Function of Gender and Sensation Seeking: A Preliminary Analysis
- Psychology, Medicine
- Journal of sex research
- 2016
The relationship between sexual responsivity, sensation seeking, and sexual behavior is gender specific, and the nature of stimuli used to induce positive mood in imaging and other studies should be carefully considered. Expand
Neural substrates of sexual arousal are not sex dependent
- Medicine, Psychology
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
- 2019
A thorough statistical review of significant neuroimaging studies offers strong quantitative evidence that the neuronal response to visual sexual stimuli, contrary to the widely accepted view, is independent of biological sex. Expand
Functional neuroimaging studies of sexual arousal and orgasm in healthy men and women: A review and meta-analysis
- Psychology, Medicine
- Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews
- 2012
A neurophenomenological model is presented to understand how these multiple regional brain responses could account for the varied facets of the subjective experience of sexual arousal. Expand
Sex differences in the neural correlates of affective experience.
- Psychology, Medicine
- Social cognitive and affective neuroscience
- 2014
It is found that men and women do not differ overall in their intensity of moment-to-moment affective experiences when viewing evocative images, but instead, as predicted, women showed a greater association between the momentary arousal ratings and neural responses in the anterior insula cortex, which represents bodily sensations. Expand
References
SHOWING 1-10 OF 47 REFERENCES
Sex differences in the neural basis of emotional memories
- Psychology, Medicine
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
- 2002
Women had significantly more brain regions where activation correlated with both ongoing evaluation of emotional experience and with subsequent memory for the most emotionally arousing pictures, and greater overlap in brain regions sensitive to current emotion and contributing to subsequent memory may be a neural mechanism for emotions to enhance memory more powerfully in women than in men. Expand
Sex-Related Difference in Amygdala Activity during Emotionally Influenced Memory Storage
- Psychology, Medicine
- Neurobiology of Learning and Memory
- 2001
Results demonstrate a clear gender-related lateralization of amygdala involvement in emotionally influenced memory, and indicate that theories of the neurobiology of emotionally influencing memory must begin to account for the influence of gender. Expand
Neural activation during sexual and competitive arousal in healthy men
- Medicine, Psychology
- Psychiatry Research: Neuroimaging
- 1999
To investigate the mediating neuroanatomy of positively valenced arousal, we used script-driven imagery in conjunction with positron emission tomography to measure relative regional cerebral blood… Expand
Amygdala response to both positively and negatively valenced stimuli
- Psychology, Medicine
- Neuroreport
- 2001
A role for the amygdala in processing emotional stimuli that extends beyond negative and fearful stimuli is demonstrated, and arousal level is clearly demonstrated to modulate the amygdala response. Expand
Areas of brain activation in males and females during viewing of erotic film excerpts
- Psychology, Medicine
- Human brain mapping
- 2002
The findings reveal the existence of similarities and dissimilarities in the way the brain of both genders responds to erotic stimuli and suggest that the greater SA generally experienced by men, when viewing erotica, may be related to the functional gender difference found here with respect to the hypothalamus. Expand
Brain processing of visual sexual stimuli in human males
- Psychology, Medicine
- Human brain mapping
- 2000
A model of the brain processes mediating the cognitive, emotional, motivational, and autonomic components of human male sexual arousal is proposed. Expand
Neuroanatomical Correlates of Visually Evoked Sexual Arousal in Human Males
- Psychology, Medicine
- Archives of sexual behavior
- 1999
PET identified brain regions whose activation was correlated with visually evoked sexual arousal in males, and activation of some of these areas was positively correlated with plasma testosterone levels. Expand
An fMRI Study of Sex Differences in Regional Activation to a Verbal and a Spatial Task
- Medicine, Psychology
- Brain and Language
- 2000
The results suggest that failure to activate the appropriate hemisphere in regions directly involved in task performance may explain certain sex differences in performance, and extend the principle that bilateral activation in a distributed cognitive system underlies sex Differences in performance. Expand
Conscious and unconscious emotional learning in the human amygdala
- Medicine, Psychology
- Nature
- 1998
The results indicate that the human amygdala can discriminate between stimuli solely on the basis of their acquired behavioural significance, and second, this response is lateralized according to the subjects' level of awareness of the stimuli. Expand
Ecstasy and Agony: Activation of the Human Amygdala in Positive and Negative Emotion
- Psychology, Medicine
- Psychological science
- 2002
Although the amygdala appears to play a more extensive role in negative emotion, it is involved in positive emotion as well, and the first neuroimaging evidence for a role of the amygdala in positive emotional reactions elicited by visual stimuli is presented. Expand