Does erotic stimulus presentation design affect brain activation patterns? Event-related vs. blocked fMRI designs

Bühler, Mira, Vollstädt-Klein, Sabine, Klemen, Jane and Smolka, Michael N. 2008. Does erotic stimulus presentation design affect brain activation patterns? Event-related vs. blocked fMRI designs. Behavioral and Brain Functions 4 (1) , 30. 10.1186/1744-9081-4-30

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Abstract

Background Existing brain imaging studies, investigating sexual arousal via the presentation of erotic pictures or film excerpts, have mainly used blocked designs with long stimulus presentation times. Methods To clarify how experimental functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) design affects stimulus-induced brain activity, we compared brief event-related presentation of erotic vs. neutral stimuli with blocked presentation in 10 male volunteers. Results Brain activation differed depending on design type in only 10% of the voxels showing task related brain activity. Differences between blocked and event-related stimulus presentation were found in occipitotemporal and temporal regions (Brodmann Area (BA) 19, 37, 48), parietal areas (BA 7, 40) and areas in the frontal lobe (BA 6, 44). Conclusion Our results suggest that event-related designs might be a potential alternative when the core interest is the detection of networks associated with immediate processing of erotic stimuli. Additionally, blocked, compared to event-related, stimulus presentation allows the emergence and detection of non-specific secondary processes, such as sustained attention, motor imagery and inhibition of sexual arousal.

Item Type:	Article
Status:	Published
Schools:	Psychology
Subjects:	Q Science > QP Physiology
Additional Information:	Pdf uploaded in accordance with publisher's policy at http://www.sherpa.ac.uk/romeo/issn/1744-9081/ (accessed 25/02/2014)
Publisher:	BioMed Central
ISSN:	1744-9081
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	30 March 2016
Last Modified:	13 May 2023 06:01
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/31486

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