Psychiatry Investig.
2012 Dec;9(4):379-383.
Effects of Antidepressant Treatment on Sexual Arousal in Depressed Women: A Preliminary fMRI Study
- Affiliations
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- 1Department of Psychiatry, Chonbuk National University Medical School and Institute for Medical Sciences, Jeonju, Republic of Korea.
- 2Department of Psychiatry, Chonbuk National University Hospital and Research Institute of Clinical Medicine, Jeonju, Republic of Korea.
- 3Department of Radiology, Chonnam National University Medical School, Gwangju, Republic of Korea. gwjeong@chonnam.ac.kr
- 4Department of Radiology, Hanlyo University, Gwangyang, Republic of Korea.
- 5Department of Psychiatry, Chonnam National University Medical School, Gwangju, Republic of Korea.
- 6Department of Psychiatry, Yesan Hospital, Yesan, Republic of Korea.
- 7Department of Psychiatry, College of Medicine, The Catholic University of Korea, Seoul, Republic of Korea.
Abstract
OBJECTIVE
There was a recent study to explore the cerebral regions associated with sexual arousal in depressed women using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). The purpose of this neuroimaging study was to investigate the effects of antidepressant treatment on sexual arousal in depressed women.
METHODS
Seven depressed women with sexual arousal dysfunction (mean age: 41.7+/-13.8, mean scores of the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) and the 17-item Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression (HAMD-17): 35.6+/-7.1 and 34.9+/-3.1, respectively) and nine healthy women (mean age: 40.3+/-11.6) underwent fMRI before and after antidepressant treatment. The fMRI paradigm contrasted a 1 minute rest period viewing non-erotic film with 4 minutes of sexual stimulation viewing an erotic video film. Data were analyzed by SPM 2. The relative number of pixels activated in each period was used as an index of activation. All depressed women were treated with mirtazapine (mean dosage: 37.5 mg/day) for 8 to 10 weeks.
RESULTS
Levels of brain activity during sexual arousal in depressed women significantly increased with antidepressant treatment (p<0.05) in the regions of the hypothalamus (3.0% to 11.2%), septal area (8.6% to 27.8%) and parahippocampal gyrus (5.8% to 14.6%). Self-reported sexual arousal during visual sexual stimulation also significantly increased post-treatment, and severity of depressive symptoms improved, as measured by the BDI and HAMD-17 (p<0.05).
CONCLUSION
These results show that sexual arousal dysfunction of depressed women may improve after treatment of depression, and that this improvement is associated with increased activation of the hypothalamus, septal area, and parahippocampal gyrus during sexual arousal.
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