15 Nov This is your brain on… ahem

Last year, we published a snapshot of Contrarian’s brain as he listened to Costas Halavrasos on Maritime Noon. Psychobiologist Barry R. Komisaruk of Rutger’s University in New Jersey has done me one better, by releasing a stop motion animation showing sequential MRI brain scans of 54-year-old PhD student and sex therapist Nan Wise as she manually stimulated herself to orgasm.

It is not known whether Wise was listening to Halavrasos at the time.

The first portion of the video shows a sequence of 20 snapshot fMRI images, taken over a 12 minute period, during which Wise approached orgasm, achieved orgasm, and entered a refractory period.

The scan detects oxygen levels in the blood that reflect the varying activity in 80 different regions of the brain. The animation uses a “hot metal” colour scale, beginning with dark red (low activity) and progressing through orange and yellow to white (highest activity).

H/T: Vicky Salazar