Methamphetamine METH is a psychomotor stimulant that is reported to enhance sexual desire and behavior in both men and women, leading to increases in unplanned pregnancies, sexually-transmitted infections, and even comorbid psychiatric conditions. Here, we discuss our rodent model of increased sexually-motivated behaviors in which the co-administration of METH and the ovarian hormones, estradiol and progesterone, intensify the incentive properties of a sexual stimulus and increases measures of sexually-motivated behavior in the presence of an androgen-specific cue. We then present the neurobiological mechanisms by which this heightened motivational salience is mediated by the actions of METH and ovarian hormones, particularly progestins, in the posterodorsal medial nucleus of the amygdala MePD , a key integration site for sexually-relevant sensory information with generalized arousal. We finally demonstrate the cellular and molecular mechanisms underlying this facilitation of sexual motivation by METH, including the upregulation, increased phosphorylation, and activation of progestin receptors PRs in the MePD by METH in the presence of ovarian hormones. Taken together, this work extends our understanding of the neurobiology of female sexual motivation. Sexual behaviors are a complex, coordinated suite of actions that arise from the integration of psychological and physiological processes with external elements. One key component of sexual behaviors is that of sexual motivation, a hypothetical, internal willingness to engage in sexual behaviors Holder and Mong, Although research into female sexual motivation is an active and growing field, relatively little is understood about the neurobiological origins of sexual motivation in women.
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The biopsychosocial model emphasizes relational factors such as quality and availability as key components to older adult sexual activity Gillespie, Supporting these findings, a previous study found that older adults aged 65 and over reported having more sex in the past six months but fewer sexual partners in the past year than younger adults. The current study seeks to further explore sexual activity by gender specifically, number of sex partners in the last year, and frequency of sex over the past six months in older adults.
They can exist in any combination, and a person's placement on one spectrum does not necessarily determine their placement on any of the others. Intersex people are individuals born with physical sex markers genitals, hormones, gonads, or chromosomes that are neither clearly male nor female. The existence of intersex people shows that there are not just two sexes, and the lines between sexes can be blurry. The sex spectrum is the concept of a continuum of people with sexes ranging from people with typical male physiology to people with typical female physiology. The gender spectrum visualizes gender as a continuum stretching from men to women and masculine to feminine. Gender identities other than man or woman are considered to be non-binary.
The one-sex and two-sex theories are two models of human anatomy or fetal development discussed in Thomas Laqueur 's book Making Sex: Body and Gender from the Greeks to Freud. He theorizes that a fundamental change in attitudes toward human sexual anatomy occurred in Europe in the 18th and 19th centuries. Prior to the eighteenth century, it was a common belief that women and men represented two different forms of one essential sex: that is, women were seen to possess the same fundamental reproductive structure as men, the only difference being that female genitalia was inside the body, not outside of it. Anatomists saw the vagina as an interior penis , the labia as foreskin , the uterus as scrotum , and the ovaries as testicles.
