New research suggests sex addiction is a dysfunction in a critical brain region that controls decision-making.
Sex addiction is more than the latest celebrity disorder du jour, but a dysfunction in a critical brain region that controls decision-making, new research suggests.
Dr. Lique Coolen, Canada Research Chair in the Neurobiology of Motivation and Reward, and colleagues have found that rats with a damaged prefrontal cortex become compulsive sex seekers.
Coolen says the prefrontal cortex, located in the front part of the brain, normally acts as a break on self-destructive behaviour.
"We're always very cautious to draw parallels between studies in rodents with human behaviours," she says. But Coolen believes hyper-sexuality doesn't deserve the bad press it has recently attracted.
"My concern is with all these celebrities claiming they have sex addiction. I read the newspaper just like everyone else. A first gut reaction is to say, 'Oh, come on, this is just an excuse that people are using.'
"I think that that really damages or hurts people who really truly suffer from hyper-sexuality. They may feel even more inhibited to talk to their physicians about it and ask for help."
"Hyper-sexual disorder" is being recommended for inclusion in psychiatry's official manual of mental illness. The disorder would refer to men and women with recurrent "out-of-control" sexual behaviours. They may be consumed by pornography or cybersex, for example, or repeatedly engage in one-night stands or affairs, according to the criteria being developed for inclusion in the next edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.
The brain's prefrontal cortex appears to play a role in many addictions or compulsive behaviours, says Coolen, a professor in the department of anatomy and cell biology at the University of Western Ontario in London.
For their study, she and her colleagues taught male rats to associate mating with "a very negative consequence:" Every time the animals copulated, the male rodents were injected with a compound that made them sick to their stomachs.
"The animal really learns to associate, 'I'm going to mate and I know I'm going to get sick afterwards," Coolen says.
Normally, it takes about four association trials for the rodents to stop initiating sex. "They see the female and try to get as far away from her as they can," Coolen says.
But when the researchers made lesions in the prefrontal cortex, the rats continued to copulate, "even though they knew the mating was associated with illness."
It may not be damage, per se, that's needed to affect the brain's inborn break on compulsive behaviour. Rather, it could be caused by a irregularity or change in the expression of certain proteins, or changes in the connections between brain cells.
"That has to be the next step in this research," Coolen says, "understanding what are the actual chemicals that are important for the function of the prefrontal cortex in inhibiting these behaviours."
It's too early to know whether prefrontal cortex dysfunction causes hyper-sexuality in humans. "But I do think that this research indicates that this is something we should look for," Coolen says.
Dr. Lique Coolen, Canada Research Chair in the Neurobiology of Motivation and Reward, and colleagues have found that rats with a damaged prefrontal cortex become compulsive sex seekers.
Coolen says the prefrontal cortex, located in the front part of the brain, normally acts as a break on self-destructive behaviour.
"We're always very cautious to draw parallels between studies in rodents with human behaviours," she says. But Coolen believes hyper-sexuality doesn't deserve the bad press it has recently attracted.
"My concern is with all these celebrities claiming they have sex addiction. I read the newspaper just like everyone else. A first gut reaction is to say, 'Oh, come on, this is just an excuse that people are using.'
"I think that that really damages or hurts people who really truly suffer from hyper-sexuality. They may feel even more inhibited to talk to their physicians about it and ask for help."
"Hyper-sexual disorder" is being recommended for inclusion in psychiatry's official manual of mental illness. The disorder would refer to men and women with recurrent "out-of-control" sexual behaviours. They may be consumed by pornography or cybersex, for example, or repeatedly engage in one-night stands or affairs, according to the criteria being developed for inclusion in the next edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.
The brain's prefrontal cortex appears to play a role in many addictions or compulsive behaviours, says Coolen, a professor in the department of anatomy and cell biology at the University of Western Ontario in London.
For their study, she and her colleagues taught male rats to associate mating with "a very negative consequence:" Every time the animals copulated, the male rodents were injected with a compound that made them sick to their stomachs.
"The animal really learns to associate, 'I'm going to mate and I know I'm going to get sick afterwards," Coolen says.
Normally, it takes about four association trials for the rodents to stop initiating sex. "They see the female and try to get as far away from her as they can," Coolen says.
But when the researchers made lesions in the prefrontal cortex, the rats continued to copulate, "even though they knew the mating was associated with illness."
It may not be damage, per se, that's needed to affect the brain's inborn break on compulsive behaviour. Rather, it could be caused by a irregularity or change in the expression of certain proteins, or changes in the connections between brain cells.
"That has to be the next step in this research," Coolen says, "understanding what are the actual chemicals that are important for the function of the prefrontal cortex in inhibiting these behaviours."
It's too early to know whether prefrontal cortex dysfunction causes hyper-sexuality in humans. "But I do think that this research indicates that this is something we should look for," Coolen says.
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