(no subject)

[andrewducker]

Using MRI scanners to investigate sexuality.  Some hyperbole but some interesting stuff too.

The course of sex research, however, didn't run smoothly. When San Jose sex therapist Linda Banner first approached Stanford University about using an MRI facility, she did not encounter a receptive audience. "We ran into a few problems," she said at the San Diego conference. The Stanford imaging staff refused to allow liquid in the MRI machine and issued an edict: "Don't even think about asking the orgasm question"

Despite the obstacles, researchers have plenty to report. In one of the most intriguing findings, Whipple and colleagues at Rutgers discovered that women paralyzed below the waist can give themselves orgasms by stimulating their own genitals. While their injuries prevent them from actually feeling the stimulation, they still experience orgasms.

Whipple suspects that some signals from the genitals travel to the brain through the vagus nerve, which connects several internal organs to the brain and is vital to the body's survival. The vagus nerve bypasses the spinal cord, so a severe back injury may not disrupt its transmission lines.