LUST

LUST

LUST is fourth on the list of Jaak Panksepp’s seven primary affect systems. These primary affects all originate in the subcortical brain.  They are like the prime numbers of the emotional system. They can’t be divided by any other number.

Seven Primary Affect Systems

1. SEEKING or expectancy
2. RAGE
3. FEAR
4. LUST
5. CARING
6. PANIC/GRIEF
7. PLAY

POA

The subcortical hypothalamus network of LUST or sexual behavior is basically the same in men and women, but slight differences in the brain can be huge. The names of brain areas within the hypothalamus are also huge, but researchers go by the acronyms. In males, the POA (sexually dimorphic preoptic area) is larger than in females and essential for males’ sexual competence. In fact, the POA in males corresponds to the gonads in women. It is as if males had a big set of sex glands in their brains, corresponding to the female gonads. Male rats like to have testosterone injected into the POA. It “oils” their sexual circuits and they work hard at tasks to get oiled.

VMH

The VMH (ventralmedial hypothalamus) is more influential in female sexual responsivity. Female urges for sexual receptivity originate in the VMH, a different part of the hypothalamus than the POA for male urges. Damage to the VMH severely impairs females sexual receptivity, while such a wound has comparatively little effect on the sexuality of male rats.

Complex Sex

LUST or sex is perhaps the most complicated primary affect of all. This is partly because most of the studies of primal affects have been done with rats and other mammals, and also because most of the recent brain imaging studies with humans have been done at the higher, tertiary, neocortical level.

The studies differ as well because though the epicenter for primary sexual urges in mammals is the anterior hypothalamus, in rats the specific area is the POA, while in human males it is the interstitial nuclei area of the anterior hypothalamus (INAH). But since those areas are so very close, I only refer to the POA. But I mention the INAH to let you know it is reported to be smaller in homosexual than heterosexual men.

POA

The brain is a big blob so patients must stay awake during many brain surgeries. Some of the different areas are cells apart and look so much alike that the only way of determining boundaries is to electrically stimulate the area to see how the patient responds. Sometimes they miscalculate, like in the famous case of HM where the surgeon cut out his memory-making hippocampus. Whoops!

Self-help books that help:

Total Self-Renewal through Attention Therapies and Open Focus

The Open-Focus Brain: Harnessing the Power of Attention to Heal Mind and Body