Happy Valentine's Day! Here's how orgasms work.

"Orgasm is a compelling, brief event that is an integration of cognitive, emotional, somatic, visceral, and neural processes," begin Barry R. Komisaruk, Carlos Beyer and Beverly Whipple in their sweet talking new article in The Psychologist.

They note that most previous studies of the orgasm have focused on how physical actions affect the body, but new research into the effects of drugs like anti-depressants on sex has shifted the focus to where it really belongs. The mind.

Inside our brain we have "orgasm accelerators" and "orgasm brakes." Hit the jump for the all-important differentiation.

It seems like dopamine is the key neurotransmitter involved in getting that orgasm going. Drugs that release dopamine, like amphetamines, as well as drugs that prevent reuptake facilitate orgasm. It's been shown in both reactions to the drugs as well in brain scans during orgasm--during male ejaculation the dopamine-synthesizing neurons in the lower brainstem light up a PET scan. That's how we know that cigarette you're smoking means business time.

Brain-imaging studies also show activity in the dopaminergic ‘reward’ system of the brain during sex and arousal, which means I might just as well be playing video games or building robots. On a sweeter note, being Valentine's and all, men and women who reported being "intensely in love" while looking a picture of the object of their affections showed increased activity in the ventral midbrain area and the caudate nucleus where dopamine-laden neurons speed off too. Awwwwwww.

But while dopamine says, "Go, go, go," serotonin says, "I've got a headache tonight, Babe." Patients being treated with antidepressive medications, which generally prevent the reuptake of serotonin, notice anorgasmic effects--as if depression wasn't bad enough to begin with. Fortunately, other drugs like cyproheptadine block the serotonin before it hits the serotonin-2 receptor subtype, proving another victory for science.

The article runs down other factors involved, some more physical, but concludes that "We have but scratched the surface of orgasm’s potential as an entity for analysis by physiological, pharmacological, endocrinological, immunological, evolutionary, cognitive, social neuroscience and other lenses."

That's right. It's Valentine's Day: Research, people, research!

[Via The Psychologist]