The common neural bases between sexual desire and love: a multilevel kernel density fMRI analysis

Autor: Chris Frum, Stephanie Cacioppo, James W. Lewis, James G. Pfaus, Francesco Bianchi-Demicheli
Jazyk: angličtina
Rok vydání: 2012
Předmět:
Male
Libido
Urology
Endocrinology
Diabetes and Metabolism
media_common.quotation_subject
Brain/physiology
Dominance
Cerebral/physiology
behavioral disciplines and activities
050105 experimental psychology
Pleasure
03 medical and health sciences
0302 clinical medicine
Endocrinology
Imaging
Three-Dimensional
Social cognition
Image Interpretation
Computer-Assisted
medicine
Humans
Nerve Net/physiology
0501 psychology and cognitive sciences
Dominance
Cerebral
Set (psychology)
media_common
Retrospective Studies
Expectancy theory
Brain Mapping
ddc:618
medicine.diagnostic_test
05 social sciences
Brain
16. Peace & justice
Love
Magnetic Resonance Imaging
humanities
Psychiatry and Mental health
Sexual desire
Reproductive Medicine
Feeling
behavior and behavior mechanisms
Female
Libido/physiology
Nerve Net
Functional magnetic resonance imaging
Psychology
Insula
Social psychology
030217 neurology & neurosurgery
Zdroj: Journal of Sexual Medicine, Vol. 9, No 4 (2012) pp. 1048-54
ISSN: 1743-6095
Popis: Introduction. One of the most difficult dilemmas in relationship science and couple therapy concerns the interaction between sexual desire and love. As two mental states of intense longing for union with others, sexual desire and love are, in fact, often difficult to disentangle from one another. Aim. The present review aims to help understand the differences and similarities between these two mental states using a comprehensive statistical meta-analyses of all functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies on sexual desire and love. Methods. Systematic retrospective review of pertinent neuroimaging literature. Main Outcome Measures. Review of published literature on fMRI studies illustrating brain regions associated with love and sexual desire to date. Results. Sexual desire and love not only show differences but also recruit a striking common set of brain areas that mediate somatosensory integration, reward expectation, and social cognition. More precisely, a significant posterior- to-anterior insular pattern appears to track sexual desire and love progressively. Conclusions. This specific pattern of activation suggests that love builds upon a neural circuit for emotions and pleasure, adding regions associated with reward expectancy, habit formation, and feature detection. In particular, the shared activation within the insula, with a posterior-to-anterior pattern, from desire to love, suggests that love grows out of and is a more abstract representation of the pleasant sensorimotor experiences that characterize desire. From these results, one may consider desire and love on a spectrum that evolves from integrative representations of affective visceral sensations to an ultimate representation of feelings incorporating mechanisms of reward expectancy and habit learning. Cacioppo S, Bianchi-Demicheli F, Frum C, Pfaus JG, and Lewis JW. The common neural bases between sexual desire and love: A multilevel kernel density fMRI analysis. J Sex Med 2012;9:1048-1054.
Databáze: OpenAIRE
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