Research into sex and the brain of women seems to show that a little activity under the sheets has even more benefits than we think.
We mistakenly assumed we already knew everything about sex, from how intercourse affects our physical and mental health, to how many calories we burn, to even the formula for finding out if we’re having enough sex.
What we didn’t know though, is that the link between sex and health is actually much deeper. Especially with regard to the benefits of sex on our brain.
According to a new study, published in the Journal of Neuroscience, sex may actually be responsible for a more developed brain , especially the somatosensory cortex.
Researchers have in fact identified the region of the brain linked to genital stimulation in women, discovering not only that it is more developed than that of men, but that its development also depends on how active a woman is under the sheets.
In other words: the more sex a woman has, the more developed her brain is.
Sex and the brain: the results of the study
The research saw a group of female volunteers- aged 18 to 45- engage in clitoral stimulation while their brains were scanned via functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). The results confirmed that the somatosensory cortex region of the brain was activated in each woman upon stimulation.
The researchers also asked the participants how often they had had sex in the past year and found that the thickness of the brain area in question was more developed among women who reported more frequent sex.
This isn’t the first time science has shown that sex is good for the brain. In 2016, a team of researchers from McGill University in Canada found that young women who have intercourse are easier to remember things than their sexually inactive counterparts. Another study, from Coventry University in the UK, similarly found that those who did regular activity under the blankets had better brain health.