Famous Sad Love Quotes: Why nipples stimulate the same area of the female brain as genitals do

Thursday, August 4, 2011

Why nipples stimulate the same area of the female brain as genitals do

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By Daniel Bates

Last updated at 1:24 PM on 4th August 2011

When women's nipples are stimulated the sensation travels to the same part of the brain as when their genitals are aroused, a study has found.

Brain scans of women who made themselves aroused showed that the nipples hit the same spot as the vagina and clitoris.

Regardless of where the stimulation occurred on their body, the same area at the top of the brain 'lit up', the images show.

Meg Ryan in the fake orgasm scene in When Harry Met Sally. Brain scans of women who made themselves aroused showed that the nipples 'lit up' the same part of the brain as the vagina and clitoris

The research confirms for the first time what many women have experienced themselves, even if men don't believe it - that their nipples can be an erogenous zone too.

A team from Rutgers University in the U.S. asked 11 non-pregnant women between 23 and 56 to stimulate themselves while they lay inside a brain scanner.

The resulting images show the areas of the brain which were affected were like a 'cluster of grapes' in the medial paracentral lobule, which is in the middle and at the top of the brain.

In men, the same area also lights up when they are stimulated.

Rutgers psychologist Barry Komisaruk, the lead researcher, said this could explain why women can become aroused just by their nipples alone.

'My speculation is that this could be the basis for many women saying that nipple stimulation is erotogenic, because it stimulates the same area as the genitals,' he told Live Science.

Regardless of where the stimulation occurred on their body, the same area at the top of the brain was 'lit up'

He added that four nerves bring signals from a woman's genitals up to her brain.

The clitoris relies on the pudendal nerve, the vagina uses the pelvic nerve and the hypogastric nerve connects with the cervix and uterus.

In addition the cervix uses the vagus nerve which bypasses the spinal cord, and explains how people who have been paralysed can still orgasm.

Dr Komisaruk said that although it is unlikely, another explanation for why the nipples hit the same part of the brain as other erogenous zones could be to do with breast feeding.

Stimulating the nipples releases the hormone oxytocin which is normally secreted during labour and causes the uterus to contract, thus causing sensations in the brain.

The Rutgers research project has already found that an orgasm affects a large part of the brain and that there is no 'standard' reaction to sex.

Dr Komisaruk hopes that in addition to helping people who can't orgasm learn how to, his research will help unlock wider secrets of the brain.

'If we can control a part of the brain that produces pleasurable sensation, what would that do in the case of, say, depression or anxiety or addiction or obesity?' he told LiveScience.

'We really don't know what the limits are as far as what we can make our brains do'.