Women have far more going on in their brains when they get turned on than men, new research suggests.
Experts used advanced imaging techniques to scan brain activity in volunteers while they watched porn.
They were able to detect higher levels of activity in a number of regions of the minds of females, when compared with their male counterparts.
Scientists behind the study believe the finding shows different neurological processes are involved in male and female arousal.
Experts from McGill University in Montreal used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scans to capture images of the brain activity of 40 male and female volunteers while they were shown porn videos and clips from the ABC sitcom Modern Family.
During each video, subjects were instructed to use a four-button fiberoptic response box indicating any increase or decrease in their sexual arousal.
The clips from Modern Family were designed as a comparison, to differentiate erotic arousal from humorous in the brain.
Thermal imaging cameras were placed near to their genitals so that experimenters could observe any visible signs of increased sexual stimulation.
They found that genital arousal in women was more strongly linked with changes in brain activity, across numerous regions, than men.
Writing in a paper detailing their findings, its authors said: ‘The finding was unexpected because most previous research has suggested that the correlations between genital response and subjective arousal are stronger for men.
‘There were no brain regions in men with stronger brain-genital correlations than in women.
‘Perhaps women’s rating of their sexual arousal responses might be more influenced by the visual features of erotic stimuli than their peripheral physiologic responses.
‘Specific visual features of erotic stimuli could play a stronger role in female sexual arousal responses compared with male responses.
‘This is a particularly interesting finding given the documented sex differences in neural processing of visual sexual stimuli, which usually favor men and which are typically explained by the particular importance of visual cues in male sexual behavior.’
The study involved 20 men, aged 18 to 31, and 20 women, aged 19 to 30.
They were recruited through the university’s online classified ads, Facebook, and postings on campus.
