Abstract
Successful reproduction is a fundamental physiological process that relies on the integration of sensory cues of attraction with appropriate emotions and behaviors and the reproductive axis. However, the factors responsible for this integration remain largely unexplored. Using functional neuroimaging, hormonal, and psychometric analyses, we demonstrate that the reproductive hormone kisspeptin enhances brain activity in response to olfactory and visual cues of attraction in men. Furthermore, the brain regions enhanced by kisspeptin correspond to areas within the olfactory and limbic systems that govern sexual behavior and perception of beauty as well as overlap with its endogenous expression pattern. Of key functional and behavioral significance, we observed that kisspeptin was most effective in men with lower sexual quality-of-life scores. As such, our results reveal a previously undescribed attraction pathway in humans activated by kisspeptin and identify kisspeptin signaling as a new therapeutic target for related reproductive and psychosexual disorders.
Highlights
Attraction to another individual is the fundamental initiating step for sexual behavior [1]
We explored areas known to express kisspeptin receptors and limbic regions involved in sexual arousal by performing an regions of interest (ROI) analysis based on a priori–defined brain regions [21, 39]
We demonstrate for the first time to our knowledge that the reproductive hormone kisspeptin enhances brain activity in response to olfactory and visual cues of attraction in healthy men
Summary
Attraction to another individual is the fundamental initiating step for sexual behavior [1]. This innate process relies on the integration of multimodal sensory cues with appropriate emotional and behavioral outputs. The intrinsic factors that mediate human attraction remain incompletely understood. Unraveling these integral processes is of major scientific and clinical importance, as related psychosexual disorders affect up to 1 in 3 people worldwide [2, 3], with significant detrimental effects on quality of life, interpersonal relationships, and fertility [4]. Studying factors that may modulate these olfactory and visual cues of attraction can provide important insights into human psychosexual function
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