How the Brain’s Involved in Wanting and Having Sex

A new review looks at how the brain impacts the sequence of physical and emotional changes that occur as a person participates in sexually stimulating activities.

Experts note that the cerebral cortex region of the brain is involved in all three phases of the sexual pleasure cycle—wanting sex, having sex, and inhibiting sex—and each of these phases depends on distinct networks within the brain. It’s also clear that alterations in these brain networks are associated with sexual dysfunction.

“For all its primitive functions, human sex draws heavily on the functionality of the part of the brain that has evolved most recently, the cerebral cortex,” said Dr. Janniko Georgiadis, lead author of the Clinical Anatomy review.