Neuroscience on Desire

Once scientists began studying the structure of the brain, and looking at activity in different areas, they began to gather evidence that feelings of desire occur in the brain regions that are also associated with reward and addiction. Helen Fisher, a scientist who has done fMRI studies of people who are in love, published a book called Why We Love that sums up a lot of the findings in this area. She suggests that love and its loss are functionally similar to addiction and getting sober.

 Somebody a long time ago had it right.  

Other neuroscientists have focused on the sexual side of desire, exploring what your brain is doing when you get turned on and have orgasms. One of the pioneers in this field, neuroscientist Barry Komisaruk, have mapped the brain regions that become active in women who are aroused and orgasmic. It turns out that there is no single “pleasure center” in the brain - orgasms tend to light up a wide variety of brain regions related to everything from memory to higher reason. They’ve also discovered that, in women at least, orgasmic impulses can reach the brain even when the spinal cord is damaged, which suggests that there are non-spinal nerve connections between the vagina and the brain.   (via)