"A click, a creak: I slide inside the CT scanner. My head is secured with straps, a blanket is covered so that I can touch my private parts, especially my clitoris, with relative decorum," says New Scientist journalist Kayt Sukel. “I'm going to masturbate myself to orgasm while the CT scanner monitors the blood flow to my brain,” she explains. This will help the authors of the experiment, Barry Komisaruk from Rutgers University (New Jersey) and his colleagues, understand the mechanisms of sexual arousal , the publication reports. Komisaruk and his colleagues have already discovered that orgasm can be achieved in more than one way, and they may have also discovered a new type of state of consciousness. This discovery, in turn, potentially opens the way for the invention of new painkillers. Although orgasm is an almost universal phenomenon for humanity, we still don't know much about it. Meanwhile, according to some estimates, last year one in four American women had difficulty achieving orgasm, and 5-10% of women suffer from anorgasmia. But there are few treatment options, since there is no clear data that would explain what exactly happens at the moment of orgasm. “Komisaruk is interested in the course of orgasm over time, especially the moment when the prefrontal cortex of the brain becomes active,” the author writes, explaining that this the part of the brain that is responsible, for example, for self-esteem and the ability to look at a situation from someone else’s point of view. Recently, Komisaruk’s group for the first time discovered that in women, during orgasm, the prefrontal cortex is activated. “It’s amazing that this also happens in those who can bring themselves to orgasm with just thoughts,” the article says. Komisaruk and his colleagues hypothesized that the prefrontal cortex plays a key role in the physiological response to fantasy. "Komisaruk instructs me to tap my thumb with my index finger for three minutes, and then for another three minutes to simply imagine myself tapping my thumb with my index finger. The CT scanner tracks blood flow in my brain,” says the journalist. She then repeated the same process, doing Kegel exercises to tighten and relax her pelvic floor muscles while touching her clitoris. “Then I was asked to bring myself to orgasm by masturbation and at the moment of climax to raise my free hand. The situation is peculiar, but I manage to complete the task without much difficulty,” writes Sukel. During masturbation, more than 30 parts of the brain were activated, responsible for touch, memory, and reward for the work done and even for the pain. "As Komisaruk expected, imaginary clitoral touching and Kegel exercises engaged the same parts of the brain as actual movements, although blood flow was slightly reduced. However, the prefrontal cortex seemed more active when touching and pelvic floor tension were imaginary rather than real." , says the article. According to the scientist, the increased activity of the cortex reflects the work of the imagination. However, Yannico Georgiadis from the University of Groningen (Netherlands) in the course of similar experiments came to the opposite conclusion: during orgasm, the prefrontal cortex, specifically the so-called left orbitofrontal cortex (LOFC), “turns off” "Georgiadis suggested that the LOFC is responsible for self-control during sex - and that only by relaxing can one achieve orgasm," the article says. In his opinion, turning off physical exercise is a sign of an altered state of consciousness, which has not yet been recorded in any other types of activity. “It seems to me that orgasm does not turn off consciousness, but changes it,” says Georgiadis. He thinks that orgasm shuts down the parts that normally control our behavior and attention. “I don’t know if an altered state of consciousness is necessary to increase pleasure, or if it’s just a side effect,” he added. Perhaps those who do not experience orgasm simply cannot relax and enter an altered state of consciousness. “Perhaps the discrepancy between the results of Georgiadis and Komisaruk has a simple explanation - these are two different paths to orgasm,” the author writes