Sexual Brain

Question 1

Sexual Response Cycle

Answer 1

1. Excitement ^
2. Plateau
3. Orgasm ^^
4. Resolution v

• blood pressure decreases and muscles in the body relax

Question 2

Comparing Men and Women During Sexual Response Cycle

Answer 2

• men acted somewhat differently during arousal and in the plateau phases
• female and men acted more similar during orgasm

Question 3

Testosterone

Answer 3

• fluctuating levels are associated with sexual desire and arousal
• higher levels are linked with vaginal blood flow during copulation

Question 4

Sexual Dimorphism of the Brain

Answer 4

• male brains are larger and have slightly higher proportion of white matter
• females have slightly larger proportion of grey matter

-adolescence and childhood brain growth peaks with girl earlier and then boys possibly connected to pubertal growth

Question 5

Object Location Memory Task

Answer 5

• object is moved to a new location
• male rats perform well
• females only perform well at a 1 hour interval

Question 6

Object Recognition

Answer 6

• novel (new) object task
• rat explore copies of an object then replaced with copy and novel item
• female rats perform better when assessing novel object recognition, exploring novel objects

Question 7

Object Location in Humans

Answer 7

• females typically outperform males in tasks of memory for object location
• better at novel condition
• females use more strategies of naming objects, when this ability was restricted the sex differences lessened

Question 8

Brain Scans of People in Love

Answer 8

fMRI determined what parts of brain were active when viewing photos of people they were in love with

• some overlap with emotion-related regions
• some overlap with positive emotion regions relating reward (dopamine)
• love connected with reward
• activation of positive emotion regions positively correlates to how passionate love was
• activation of emotion related regions were positively correlated with length of time in love

Question 9

Misconceptions of Jealousy as a sign of Love

Answer 9

measured in socially monogamous Titi Monkeys as it is shown in mate-guarding practices

• higher uptake of glucose in brain regions associated with emotion, including social bonding and memory
• higher circulating levels of testosterone and cortisol

Question 10

Physiological Changes during Sexual Activity

Answer 10

• sympathetic nervous system activated
• gives tunnel vision
• pumps more blood to muscles

Question 11

Pheromones

Answer 11

chemical substances with communicative functions
- external discharge
- affects behaviour and physiology of other members of species

Question 12

Oxytocin

Answer 12

• circulating levels increase during sex and after orgasm
• uterine contraction during peaks
• bonding/attachment and calming effect

Question 13

Pharmacological Effects of Testosterone

Answer 13

• men with low T experience increased sexual arousal
• men with normal levels don’t experience an effect

Question 14

Reduction of Anxiety from Mating

Answer 14

Mated rats were more likely to go into the open arms (indicating less anxiety)
- effects lasted for 2 hours

Question 15

Neural Regions Engaged during Copulation

Answer 15

• reward
• emotion and memory
• hormone control
• attention

Question 16

White Matter

Answer 16

coating around nerve cells that make neural transmission faster

Question 17

Grey Matter

Answer 17

main parts of cell bodies

Question 18

Spatial Navigation Memory

Answer 18

Rats find a platform using visual cues so they can stop swimming

• men use spatial strategies e.g. locations relative to landmarks
• women use egocentric strategies e.g. at a landmark I go left
• sex differences not present when more salient info is provided
• estradiol contribute to this difference