A1 Refereed original research article in a scientific journal

Pattern recognition reveals sex-dependent neural substrates of sexual perception




AuthorsPutkinen Vesa, Nazari-Farsani Sanaz, Karjalainen Tomi, Santavirta Severi, Hudson Matthew, Seppälä Kerttu, Sun Lihua, Karlsson Henry K., Hirvonen Jussi, Nummenmaa Lauri

PublisherWILEY

Publication year2023

JournalHuman Brain Mapping

Journal name in sourceHUMAN BRAIN MAPPING

Journal acronymHUM BRAIN MAPP

Volume44

Issue6

First page 2543

Last page2556

Number of pages14

ISSN1065-9471

eISSN1097-0193

DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1002/hbm.26229(external)

Web address https://doi.org/10.1002/hbm.26229(external)

Self-archived copy’s web addresshttps://research.utu.fi/converis/portal/detail/Publication/179086643(external)


Abstract

Sex differences in brain activity evoked by sexual stimuli remain elusive despite robust evidence for stronger enjoyment of and interest toward sexual stimuli in men than in women. To test whether visual sexual stimuli evoke different brain activity patterns in men and women, we measured hemodynamic brain activity induced by visual sexual stimuli in two experiments with 91 subjects (46 males). In one experiment, the subjects viewed sexual and nonsexual film clips, and dynamic annotations for nudity in the clips were used to predict hemodynamic activity. In the second experiment, the subjects viewed sexual and nonsexual pictures in an event-related design. Men showed stronger activation than women in the visual and prefrontal cortices and dorsal attention network in both experiments. Furthermore, using multivariate pattern classification we could accurately predict the sex of the subject on the basis of the brain activity elicited by the sexual stimuli. The classification generalized across the experiments indicating that the sex differences were task-independent. Eye tracking data obtained from an independent sample of subjects (N = 110) showed that men looked longer than women at the chest area of the nude female actors in the film clips. These results indicate that visual sexual stimuli evoke discernible brain activity patterns in men and women which may reflect stronger attentional engagement with sexual stimuli in men.


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