The Neural Correlates Of The Perceptual Processing Of Sexual Stimulation And Value Representing Of Erotic Reward In Patients With Lifelong Premature Ejaculation

Premature ejaculation(PE)is one of the most common sexual dysfunction in men.As the number of patients with PE who seek help voluntarily has increased significantly in recent years,the understand about neuropsychological mechanism of PE has become one of the important projects in medical and psychological filed.However,most previous studies were did by the urologist,focus on the exploration of the neurobiological pathogenesis of the peripheral nervous system and 5-hydroxytryptamine.Due to the limitations of disciplines concerns and research methods,the current understanding of the mechanism of PE is inadequate and there are large individual differences in current therapeutic effects.Therefore,this study attempts to explore the characterization of the perceptual processing of sexual stimulation and the value representing of sexual reward in patients with PE through two fMRI tasks.In addition,due to the lack of evidence in PE studies,this study only recruited patients with lifelong premature ejaculation(LPE)whose cause-of-illness are more sample as subjects,so as to better understand the mechanism of premature ejaculation.Experiment 1 used passively video watching task,to explore the characterization of the perceptual processing of sexual stimulation in patients with LPE.The results showed that erotic video clips containing high intensity erotic stimuli increased more sexual arousal and motivation in patients with LPE than healthy controls,suggesting the follow-up motivational behavior(intercourse)will be regulated more difficultly.Experiment 2 used incentive delay task containing erotic and monetary reward to explore the characterization of the expected and experience value representing of erotic reward in patients with LPE.Behavior result showed that erotic reward cues increased motivation in patients with LPE,and they rated higher hedonic scores on erotic rewards than monetary rewards,result from the decreased hedonic rating for the monetary reward in patients with LPE.Consist with this,fMRI results pointed to a differential sensitivity to erotic versus non-erotic reward in dorsal medial prefrontal cortex of patients with LPE.Above all,this study explore the characterization of the perceptual processing of sexual stimulation and the value representing of sexual reward in patients with LPE through two fMRI tasks.The results found that high intensity sexual stimuli increased more sexual arousal and motivation in patients with LPE.Similarly,experiment 2 also found that erotic reward increased more motivation than monetary reward in patients with LPE.Besides,experience 2 found LPE patients have a differential sensitivity to erotic versus non-erotic reward,potentially promoting premature ejaculation behavior.