Assessment of Cerebrocortical Areas Associated with Sexual Arousal in Depressive Women Using Functional MR Imaging

Abstract

Introduction Mental illness is closely related with sexual dysfunction. A number of investigators have reported that depressive women have difficulties in sexual arousal. Aim The purpose of this study was to compare the cerebrocortical regions associated with sexual arousal between the healthy and depressive women using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) based on the blood-oxygenation-level-dependent (BOLD) technique. Methods Together with nine healthy women (mean age: 40.3), seven depressive women (mean age: 41.7 years, mean Beck Depression Inventory: 35.6, mean Hamilton Rating Scale Depression-17: 34.9) underwent fMRI examinations using a 1.5T MR scanner (Signa Horizon; GE Medical Systems, Milwaukee, WI, USA). The fMRI data were obtained from seven oblique planes using gradient-echo EPI. Sexual stimulation paradigm began with a 1-minute rest and then 4-minute stimulation using an erotic video film. The brain activation maps and their resulting quantification were analyzed by the statistical parametric mapping (SPM99) program. The number of pixels activated by each task was used as brain activity, where the significance of the differences was evaluated by using independent t-test. Main Outcome Measures We measured brain activation areas using BOLD-based fMRI with visual sexual stimulation in healthy volunteers and depressive patients. Results Healthy women were significantly (P <0.05) activated in the regions of middle occipital gyrus, middle temporal gyrus, inferior frontal gyrus, insula, hypothalamus, septal area, anterior cingulate gyrus, parahippocampal gyrus, thalamus, and amygdala by erotic visual stimulation. In comparison with the healthy women, the depressive women gave lower activity, especially in the brain regions of hypothalamus (55.5:3.0), septal area (49.6:8.6), anterior cingulate gyrus (23.5:11.0), and parahippocampal gyrus (18.2:5.8). Conclusions This preliminary study performed by fMRI gives valuable information on differentiation of the activated cerebral regions associated with visually evoked sexual arousal between healthy and depressive women. In addition, these findings might be useful to understand neural mechanisms for female sexual dysfunction in depressive women.

Whole-brain gray matter volume abnormalities in patients with generalized anxiety disorder

“…To correct the difference in the total volume between male and female patients, total intracranial volume (TICV) obtained by summing the GM, white matter, and cerebrospinal fluid volumes (ml) in each participant was used as a covariate for analysis of covariance. Then, the anatomical labeling for specific areas with volume changes between patients with GAD and healthy controls, as well as between sexes in patients with GAD was implemented using FALBA [10], which is useful to identify and quantify the volumetric changes. The x, y, and z coordinates of the maximum t-value were based on the MNI brain space.…”

Brain Activation in Response to Visually Evoked Sexual Arousal in Male-to-Female Transsexuals: 3.0 Tesla Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging

“…Reported coordinates identify the voxel with peak activity within the cluster of activation. Based on the fMRI and PET studies (6-18), which had been published, we identified 12 brain regions of interest (ROIs) associated with visual sexual arousal and these ROIs were potentially chosen to be the key brain center for this study (Table 1). …”

“…In the past decade, numerous neuroimaging studies (6-18) using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and positron emission tomography (PET) have been performed to reveal the brain centers associated with sexual arousal. In particular, the fMRI is being widely used in such studies because of its advantages over PET, noninvasiveness, and high spatiotemporal resolution (19, 20).…”

“…Most studies that have been performed up to now dealt with normal persons or patients with sexual disorder; however, studies for the transsexuals with a sex reassignment surgery have not yet been reported. Although a single study (18) has been carried out to define differential cerebral activation patterns in response to visual erotic stimuli in MTF transsexuals, the subjects recruited were MTF transsexuals without any sex reassignment surgery, and sex hormone levels of the subjects were not considered in conjunction with brain activation. Recently, Gizewski et al (18) reported that significantly different brain activated areas including the left thalamus, bilateral amygdala, orbitofrontal, and insular cortex were observed as a result of the visual erotic stimuli in MTF transsexuals when compared with male controls; however, no such significant difference in activation patterns were observed when compared with female controls.…”

A comparative study of brain activation patterns associated with sexual arousal between males and females using 3.0-T functional magnetic resonance imaging

“…10,14 Prior to statistical analysis, images were realigned utilising sinc interpolation to match each functional volume to the reference volume, and were spatially normalised to the standard stereotactic space corresponding to the template from the Montreal Neurological Institute space, which is a template created from 152 brain datasets. Bilinear interpolation was applied for normalisation.…”