Figure - PMC

Skip to main content

An official website of the United States government

Here's how you know

Here's how you know

Official websites use .gov
A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.

Secure .gov websites use HTTPS
A lock ( ) or https:// means you've safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

View full-text article in PMC

. 2022 Aug 10;23(16):8928. doi: 10.3390/ijms23168928

Search in PMC
Search in PubMed
View in NLM Catalog
Add to search

© 2022 by the authors.

Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

PMC Copyright notice

Mechanisms by which sexual pleasure and reward activate bonding, attention, and arousal to create motivation (desire) and attraction. Left: cognitive and emotional processes. Right: associated brain regions. ACC-IN = anterior cingulate-insula complex; ARC = arcuate nucleus; Hipp = hippocampus; NAc = nucleus accumbens (ventral striatum); MEApd = medial amygdala, posterior-dorsal region; mPOA = medial preoptic area; PFC = prefrontal cortex; PVN = paraventricular nucleus of the hypothalamus; SC = somatosensory cortex; SON = supraoptic nucleus of the hypothalamus; VP = ventral pallidum; VTA = ventral tegmental area.