Neuroscience: Amateur Hour

Sex is a complex but inescapable part of our lives. Lots of people do it every day, it affects our advertisements, our clothing, even our interactions with other people. But have you ever wondered what's happening in your brain during sex? Tune in to learn a little bit about the brain regions, circuits, and neurotransmitters at play during sexy times. If you have any comments, questions, concerns, queries, or complaints, please email me at NeuroscienceAmateurHour@gmail.com or DM me at @NeuroscienceAmateurHour on Instagram. Citations and relevant papers below:  Hellier et al., Female Sexual Behavior in Mice Controlled by Kisspeptin Neurons, Nature Communications (2018). Seok, J., Sohn, J., Neural Substrates of Sexual Desire in Individuals with Problematic Hypersexual Disorder, Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience (2015). Stahl, S., Illustrating the circuits of sexual desire, Journal of Clinical Psychiatry (2010). Yang, L., Comninos, A., Dhillo, W., Intrinsic links among sex, emotion, and reproduction, Cellular and Molecular Life Sciences (2018). Leuner, B., Glasper, E., Gould, E., Sexual Experience Promotes Adult Neurogenesis in the Hippocampus Despite an Initial Elevation in Stress Hormones, PloS One (2010). Baird, A., Sex and the Single Amygdala, Part 2 of your Sexiest Brain Bits, Psychology Today (2019). Micevych, P., Meisel, R., Integrating Neural Circuits Controlling Female Sexual Behavior, Frontiers in Systems Neuroscience (2017). https://doi.org/10.3389/fnsys.2017.00042Jennings, K., De Lecea, L., Neural and Hormonal Control of Sexual Behavior, Endocrinology, Volume 161, Issue 10 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1210/endocr/bqaa150Baird, A. et al., Neurological Control of human sexual behavior: insight from new lesion studies. Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery, and Psychiatry, Volume 78, Issue 10, (2006). https://jnnp.bmj.com/content/78/10/1042Oei, N., Rombouts, S., Soeter, R., van Gerven, J., Both, S., Dopamine modulates reward system activity during subconscious processing of sexual stimuli, Neuropsychopharmacology, Volume 37 (2012). https://www.nature.com/articles/npp201219Magon, N., Kalra, S., The orgasmic history of oxytocin, love, lust and labor, Indian Journal of Endocrinology and Metabolism, (2011). 10.4103/2230-8210.84851Algoe, S., Kurtz, L., Grewen, K., Oxytocin and Social Bonds: The Role of Oxytocin in Perceptions of Romantic Partners’ Bonding Behaviors, Psychological Science, Volume 28, Issue 12 (2017).Support the show

Whether it's meeting your ex at a party or your upcoming presentation at work, we have all felt the sinking feeling of anxiety. Come and find out a little bit about what's happening upstairs in this bite-sized look at the brain regions, connections, and neurotransmitters involved in anxiety processing and regulation. If you have any comments, questions, concerns, queries, or complaints, please email me at NeuroscienceAmateurHour@gmail.com or DM me at @NeuroscienceAmateurHour on Instagram. Citations and relevant papers below: Price, J.S., An Evolutionary Perspective on Anxiety and Anxiety Disorders, New Insights into Anxiety Disorders (2012). Davis, M., The Role of the Amygdala in Fear and Anxiety, Annual Review Neuroscience (1992). Duval, Javanbakht, Liberzon., Neural circuits in anxiety and stress disorders: a focused review, Therapeutics and Clinical Risk Management (2015). Ventura Silva et al., Excitotoxic lesions in the central nucleus of the amygdala attenuate stress-induced anxiety behavior, Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience (2013). Levar et al., GABA concentrations in the anterior cingulate cortex are associated with fear network function and fear recovery in humans, Frontiers in Human Neuroscience (2017)Fuchs, Flugge., Cellular consequences of stress and depression, Dialogues Clinical Neuroscience, (2004)Lechin et al., Effects of buspirone on plasma neurotransmitters in healthy subjects, Journal of Neural Transmission (1998)Botterill et al., Bidirectional regulation of cognitive and anxiety-like behaviors by dentate gyrus mossy cells in male and female mice, Journal of Neuroscience (2021)Martin et al., The Neurobiology of Anxiety Disorders: Brain Imaging, Genetics, and Psychoneuroendocrinology, Psychiatric Clinics of North America (2013)Cominski et al., The role of the hippocampus in avoidance learning and anxiety vulnerability, Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience (2014). LeBlanc et al., Striatopallidal neurons control avoidance behaviors in exploratory tasks, Psychiatry (2018). Adhikari et al., Synchronized Activity between the Ventral Hippocampus and the Medial Prefrontal Cortex during Anxiety, Neuron (2010). Akimova, E., Lanzenberger, R., Kasper, S., The Seratonin-1A Receptor in Anxiety Disorders, Psychiatry (2009). Blanco et al., Effects of medial prefrontal cortex lesions on anxiety-like behavior in restrained and non-restrained rats, Behavioral Brain Research, (2009). Qiao et al., Aberrant Functional Network Connectivity as a Biomarker of Generalized Anxiety Disorder, Frontiers in Human Neuroscience (2017). Support the show