We’re blue in the face talking about orgasms.
We’ve brought you women sharing their stories of what the perfect orgasm feels like, we’ve given you tips on how to achieve an orgasm and scientific advice on what provokes the strongest orgasm. By now you should be an orgasm virtuso.
But we saw this today and it’s mesmerizing. This is what the female brain looks like during an orgasm.
IFL Science shared a video captured by Rutgers University after researchers managed to view the brain areas and nerve pathways that are activated in the brain when we experience an orgasm.
Participating woman sexually stimulated herself while in the very sexy setting of a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scanner.
The resulting images are beautiful but also unearth some pretty life-changing science.
A statement by lead researcher neuroscientist Barry R. Komisaruk explains:
“Previously genital sensation was thought to reach the brain only through the spinal cord.”
Komisaruk studied five women with severed spinal cords, injuries that left them paralyzed in their lower torsos. During the research, the women used vaginocervical self-stimulation and felt both stimulation and pain blockage. They all experienced an orgasm.
Imaging revealed activation of an alternative pathway through the vagus nerve, a long cranial nerve that had never been shown to extend into the pelvis in humans.
It was the first time science realized the female orgasm occurs in the brain.
