This is what your brain looks like when it orgasms

The subject matter of this article is obviously a little NSFW.

Videos containing orgasms are about 80 per cent of the internet, but neuroscientists have done it their own way.

Five women achieved orgasm inside an MRI scanner, at Rutgers University.

This video of the scans shows an orgasm literally blossom in your head.

The colour spectrum in the video denotes the oxygen levels in the brain - red being low, and yellow being high.

As you can see from the video, activity begins at the back of the brain (specifically in the sensory cortex) as the orgasm begins, before covering more than 80 regions of the brain.

It moves through the limbic system, which is responsible for your memory and emotions.

The peak of orgasm activity in the brain is as Oxytocin is released. The hormone is also released when humans touch skin on skin.

Moreover the colour quickly goes from red to completely yellow, as the orgasm floods the brain.

Hot.

Experiments with benefits

The images have been compiled from a study conducted in 2005 to better understand how nerves function in women with severe spinal cord injuries.

Once again through monitoring sensations generated from masturbation, the MRI scanner was able to show that the women, paralysed from the waist down, were still feeling sensations.

The study revealed that an orgasm finds it way to the brain via a long nerve that extends into the pelvis.

Prior to this, it was assumed women's spines were the conduit.

The study confirmed doctors Barry R. Kimsaruk and Beverly Whipple's hypothesis that it was this 'vagus' nerve and not the spine.

We conclude that the vagus nerves provide a spinal cord-bypass pathway for vaginal-cervical sensibility and that activation of this pathway can produce analgesia and orgasm.

Matron!

It's untested if the same effects occur with men - but it's common wisdom what usually happens to their brain.

HT IFL Science, Mail Online

More: 8 things you didn't know you needed to know about orgasms