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. 2014 Jul 11;9(7):e102419.
doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0102419. eCollection 2014.

Neural correlates of sexual cue reactivity in individuals with and without compulsive sexual behaviours

Valerie Voon  1 , Thomas B Mole  2 , Paula Banca  3 , Laura Porter  3 , Laurel Morris  4 , Simon Mitchell  2 , Tatyana R Lapa  3 , Judy Karr  5 , Neil A Harrison  6 , Marc N Potenza  7 , Michael Irvine  3
Affiliations

Neural correlates of sexual cue reactivity in individuals with and without compulsive sexual behaviours

Valerie Voon et al. PLoS One. .

Abstract

Although compulsive sexual behaviour (CSB) has been conceptualized as a "behavioural" addiction and common or overlapping neural circuits may govern the processing of natural and drug rewards, little is known regarding the responses to sexually explicit materials in individuals with and without CSB. Here, the processing of cues of varying sexual content was assessed in individuals with and without CSB, focusing on neural regions identified in prior studies of drug-cue reactivity. 19 CSB subjects and 19 healthy volunteers were assessed using functional MRI comparing sexually explicit videos with non-sexual exciting videos. Ratings of sexual desire and liking were obtained. Relative to healthy volunteers, CSB subjects had greater desire but similar liking scores in response to the sexually explicit videos. Exposure to sexually explicit cues in CSB compared to non-CSB subjects was associated with activation of the dorsal anterior cingulate, ventral striatum and amygdala. Functional connectivity of the dorsal anterior cingulate-ventral striatum-amygdala network was associated with subjective sexual desire (but not liking) to a greater degree in CSB relative to non-CSB subjects. The dissociation between desire or wanting and liking is consistent with theories of incentive motivation underlying CSB as in drug addictions. Neural differences in the processing of sexual-cue reactivity were identified in CSB subjects in regions previously implicated in drug-cue reactivity studies. The greater engagement of corticostriatal limbic circuitry in CSB following exposure to sexual cues suggests neural mechanisms underlying CSB and potential biological targets for interventions.

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Conflict of interest statement

Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1. Condition contrasts.
The glass brains and coronal images show the effects across groups of the following contrasts: explicit – exciting (left, top row), erotic – exciting (middle, middle row) and money – exciting (right, bottom row). The images are shown at whole-brain FWE-corrected P<0.05. The axial view (top right) shows the contrast across groups of explicit – exciting videos focusing on the substantia nigra. The image is shown with a substantia nigra region of interest mask overlaid on a magnetization transfer sequence.
Figure 2
Figure 2. Explicit versus exciting cues.
The coronal views represent the group-byvideo-type interaction of subjects with compulsive sexual behaviour (CSB)>healthy volunteers (HV) contrasting explicit>exciting cues. The images are shown as regions of interest at P<0.005. The time course analyses represent the % signal change to explicit videos (top) and exciting videos (bottom) with CSB subjects in red and healthy volunteers in black. Error bars represent SEM.
Figure 3
Figure 3. Sexual desire.
A. Subjective desire and liking scores to video types in subjects with compulsive sexual behaviours (CSB) and healthy volunteer (HV) participants. There was a significant group-by-video-type-by-desire/liking interaction. Error bars represent SEM. *p<0.05. B. Desire covariate for explicit videos in both CSB and HV subjects with the corresponding regression analysis graph for dorsal cingulate parameter estimates (P.E.) and desire scores. C. Psychophysiological interaction analysis with desire covariate for explicit-exciting contrast with dorsal cingulate seed. The coronal images and graphs show CSB subjects with an HV exclusive mask and corresponding regression analyses for ventral striatum and amygdala parameter estimates and desire scores. The images are shown as regions of interest at P<0.005.
Figure 4
Figure 4. Age.
The coronal view shows the age covariate for explicit videos in subjects with Compulsive Sexual Behaviours (CSB) with a healthy volunteer (HV) exclusive mask. The graph shows the corresponding regression analysis for the ventral striatal parameter estimate (PE) and age in years. The image is shown as a region of interest at P<0.005.
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