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Scientists have also learned that the old notion that 90% of sex is in the mind is literally true: the parts of the brain involved in sexual response include, at the very least, the sensory vagus nerves, the midbrain reticular formation, the basal ganglia, the anterior insula cortex, the amygdala, the cerebellum and the hypothalamus...
...while arousal and desire are intimately intertwined and probably involve all sorts of feedback between brain and genitalia that have yet to be untangled, at least some of the underlying biochemistry is becoming clear. Here is a catalog of some of the key chemicals of love...
Desire is complicated. Arousal, by contrast, is pretty straightforward: fill the penile arteries with blood or divert blood to the vagina and clitoris, and you're there. "Once the brain gets turned on--however it gets turned on--it's a relatively simple concept to increase blood flow," says Dr. Alan Altman, a specialist in menopause and sexuality at Harvard Medical School. In men, a chemical that facilitates the flow is vasoactive intestinal polypeptide, a hormone that also directs the expansion and contraction of smooth muscles in the gastrointestinal tract...
...role in women is diversionary: it attaches to so-called steroid-binding globulins in the blood that would otherwise latch onto estrogen molecules and render them inert. The testosterone is taken away to the liver, while the estrogen is free to make a lust-inducing dash for the brain...
Both testosterone and estrogen trigger desire by stimulating the release of neurotransmitters in the brain. These chemicals are ultimately responsible for our moods, emotions and attitudes. And the most important of these for the feeling we call desire seems to be dopamine. Dopamine is at least partly responsible for making external stimuli arousing (among other things, it's thought to be the pleasure-triggering substance underlying drug addiction). "Being low on dopamine," says the University of Washington Medical School's Heiman, "correlates with being low on desire." And in men dopamine-enhancing drugs (including some antidepressants and anti-Parkinson...