Fun, disgust and sex all taste the same to your brain

New research from Université de Montréal and McGill University’s Montreal Neurological Institute and Douglas Mental Health Hospitals show that the brain initially reacts to different emotional stimuli in much the same way, with disgust, amusement and sexual arousal provoking the same areas.

Ten male subjects aged between 21 and 30 years were treated to a series of more than 120 short film excerpts selected by the researchers for their lack of potential to induce any significant emotional reaction. These excerpts, which were extracted from movies or documentaries, depicted various scenes of social interactions (e.g. gardening, renovation, etc…). By comparison, the males were then shown a series of 30 second long excerpts depicted scenes shown to elicit amusement (comedy), disgust (scenes of mutilation), or sexual arousal (explicit male-female interactions). The clips that were the most useful in arousing a reaction, as rated by the group, were then used in the experiment.

A different group of twenty young men watched the clips through googles while having their brain scanned by an MRI machine. The brain activity that the researchers were able to observe is shown below.

Authors Sherif Karama, Jorge Armony, and Mario Beauregard write that ”given that this network includes brain regions known from previous work to be intimately involved in homeostasis, arousal, appraisal, and attention, results could be speculated to suggest the existence of a set of areas meant to improve the way we deal with activating emotional stimuli as these are arguably the ones with the greatest potential of having an immediate impact on our lives.”

Study: Film Excerpts Shown to Specifically Elicit Various Affects Lead to Overlapping Activation Foci in a Large Set of Symmetrical Brain Regions in Males

Image: Plos One. “All contrasts clearly show involvement of the frontal operculum, dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, premotor and motor cortices, temporo-occipital regions, and cerebellum.” doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0022343.g002