Introducing the brain: female sex and complexification (Introduction)

by David Turell , Wednesday, February 09, 2022, 15:06 (1016 days ago) @ David Turell

New findings related to the clitoris:

https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/her-munculus-situates-female-genital-sensati...

"Using fMRI imaging, the researchers mapped 20 participants’ responses to those puffs of air to regions along the top and side of the cortex, known as its dorsolateral areas. Female genitalia, the authors conclude, are represented in the cortex next to the representation of hips and upper legs—where one might expect it if genitalia followed the somatotopic arrangement. Importantly, “the precise location within this region varied from woman to woman,” Heim points out. But across all the women, “there were no activations in other areas of the somatosensory cortex” beyond the region by the hips and upper legs. This observation is in line with a previous study in males using a non-arousing stimulus, which similarly placed the penis’ representation field at a somatotopic location between the legs and the trunk.

***

"In a second component of the study, Heim and colleagues measured the thickness of each participant’s genital field by gauging the individual region that was activated the most by clitoral stimulation. They then correlated thickness of these genital fields with the subjects’ reports of how frequently they had intercourse, both in the past year and since the start of sexual activity. “Very interestingly,” says Einstein, the results show a link between the two. Heim points out that future studies are needed to establish whether this relationship between the genital field and frequency of sex is causal, but adds that she and her colleagues “provide a proof of principle for structural variation of this field related to its use,” something which had not been demonstrated in humans before, Heim writes.

"In previous work, Heim and colleagues associated experiences of sexual abuse with reduced cortical thickness. “These studies are very important for understanding not just sexual dysfunction as it might be described in biomedical literature, but also how people respond to sexual abuse,” says Einstein."

Comment: another activity shown to induce an area of brain thickness. All these activities handled by our brain without it exploding.