1. ¹Department of Urology, The Catholic University of Korea, Seoul, Korea
2. ²Department of Psychiatry, The Catholic University of Korea, Seoul, Korea
3. ³Department of Biomedical Engineering, The Catholic University of Korea, Seoul, Korea
4. ⁴Department of Radiology, The Catholic University of Korea, Seoul, Korea
5. ⁵Department of Nuclear Medicine, The Catholic University of Korea, Seoul, Korea
6. ⁶School of Biological Sciences, Seoul National University, Seoul, Korea

Correspondence: Dr J-H Chae, Department of Psychiatry, College of Medicine, The Catholic University of Korea, St. Mary's Hospital, 62, Yeouido-dong, Youngdeungpo-gu, Seoul 150-713, Korea. E-mail: alberto@catholic.ac.kr

Received 21 September 2005; Revised 22 November 2005; Accepted 13 December 2005; Published online 9 February 2006.

Abstract

The objective of the present study was to identify brain centers, whose activity changes are related to erotic visual stimuli in healthy, heterosexual, middle aged males. Ten heterosexual, right-handed males with normal sexual function were entered into the present study (mean age 52 years, range 46–55). All potential subjects were screened over 1 h interview, and were encouraged to fill out questionnaires including the Brief Male Sexual Function Inventory. All subjects with a history of sexual arousal disorder or erectile dysfunction were excluded. We performed functional brain magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in male volunteers when an alternatively combined erotic and nonerotic film was played for 14 min and 9 s. The major areas of activation associated with sexual arousal to visual stimuli were occipitotemporal area, anterior cingulate gyrus, insula, orbitofrontal cortex, caudate nucleus. However, hypothalamus and thalamus were not activated. We suggest that the nonactivation of hypothalamus and thalamus in middle aged males may be responsible for the lesser physiological arousal in response to the erotic visual stimuli.