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μ-opioid receptor availability is associated with sex drive in human males

The endogenous mu-opioid receptor (MOR) system modulates a multitude of social and reward-related functions, and exogenous opiates also influence sex drive in humans and animals. Sex drive shows substantial variation across humans, and it is possible that individual differences in MOR availability u...

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Autores principales: Nummenmaa, Lauri, Jern, Patrick, Malén, Tuulia, Kantonen, Tatu, Pekkarinen, Laura, Lukkarinen, Lasse, Sun, Lihua, Nuutila, Pirjo, Putkinen, Vesa
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Springer US 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8983533/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34811707
http://dx.doi.org/10.3758/s13415-021-00960-3
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author Nummenmaa, Lauri
Jern, Patrick
Malén, Tuulia
Kantonen, Tatu
Pekkarinen, Laura
Lukkarinen, Lasse
Sun, Lihua
Nuutila, Pirjo
Putkinen, Vesa
author_facet Nummenmaa, Lauri
Jern, Patrick
Malén, Tuulia
Kantonen, Tatu
Pekkarinen, Laura
Lukkarinen, Lasse
Sun, Lihua
Nuutila, Pirjo
Putkinen, Vesa
author_sort Nummenmaa, Lauri
collection PubMed
description The endogenous mu-opioid receptor (MOR) system modulates a multitude of social and reward-related functions, and exogenous opiates also influence sex drive in humans and animals. Sex drive shows substantial variation across humans, and it is possible that individual differences in MOR availability underlie interindividual of variation in human sex drive. We measured healthy male subjects’ (n = 52) brain’s MOR availability with positron emission tomography (PET) using an agonist radioligand, [(11)C]carfentanil, that has high affinity for MORs. Sex drive was measured using self-reports of engaging in sexual behaviour (sex with partner and masturbating). Bayesian hierarchical regression analysis revealed that sex drive was positively associated with MOR availability in cortical and subcortical areas, notably in caudate nucleus, hippocampus, and cingulate cortices. These results were replicated in full-volume GLM analysis. These widespread effects are in line with high spatial autocorrelation in MOR expression in human brain. Complementary voxel-based morphometry analysis (n = 108) of anatomical MR images provided limited evidence for positive association between sex drive and cortical density in the midcingulate cortex. We conclude that endogenous MOR tone is associated with individual differences in sex drive in human males.
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spelling pubmed-89835332022-04-22 μ-opioid receptor availability is associated with sex drive in human males Nummenmaa, Lauri Jern, Patrick Malén, Tuulia Kantonen, Tatu Pekkarinen, Laura Lukkarinen, Lasse Sun, Lihua Nuutila, Pirjo Putkinen, Vesa Cogn Affect Behav Neurosci Research Article The endogenous mu-opioid receptor (MOR) system modulates a multitude of social and reward-related functions, and exogenous opiates also influence sex drive in humans and animals. Sex drive shows substantial variation across humans, and it is possible that individual differences in MOR availability underlie interindividual of variation in human sex drive. We measured healthy male subjects’ (n = 52) brain’s MOR availability with positron emission tomography (PET) using an agonist radioligand, [(11)C]carfentanil, that has high affinity for MORs. Sex drive was measured using self-reports of engaging in sexual behaviour (sex with partner and masturbating). Bayesian hierarchical regression analysis revealed that sex drive was positively associated with MOR availability in cortical and subcortical areas, notably in caudate nucleus, hippocampus, and cingulate cortices. These results were replicated in full-volume GLM analysis. These widespread effects are in line with high spatial autocorrelation in MOR expression in human brain. Complementary voxel-based morphometry analysis (n = 108) of anatomical MR images provided limited evidence for positive association between sex drive and cortical density in the midcingulate cortex. We conclude that endogenous MOR tone is associated with individual differences in sex drive in human males. Springer US 2021-11-22 2022 /pmc/articles/PMC8983533/ /pubmed/34811707 http://dx.doi.org/10.3758/s13415-021-00960-3 Text en © The Author(s) 2021 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) .
spellingShingle Research Article
Nummenmaa, Lauri
Jern, Patrick
Malén, Tuulia
Kantonen, Tatu
Pekkarinen, Laura
Lukkarinen, Lasse
Sun, Lihua
Nuutila, Pirjo
Putkinen, Vesa
μ-opioid receptor availability is associated with sex drive in human males
title μ-opioid receptor availability is associated with sex drive in human males
title_full μ-opioid receptor availability is associated with sex drive in human males
title_fullStr μ-opioid receptor availability is associated with sex drive in human males
title_full_unstemmed μ-opioid receptor availability is associated with sex drive in human males
title_short μ-opioid receptor availability is associated with sex drive in human males
title_sort μ-opioid receptor availability is associated with sex drive in human males
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8983533/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34811707
http://dx.doi.org/10.3758/s13415-021-00960-3
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