The research involved stimulating the clitorises of 20 adult females while their brains were scanned using Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (FMRI).
Scientific researchers have found the brain region linked to genital touch in women and it seems it’s better developed in women who have sex regularly.
The study, recently published in the Journal of Neuroscience, analysed the connection between touch and cerebral development in 20 adult females.
As part of the research, female volunteers – between the ages of 18 and 45 – had their clitorises stimulated by a vibrating object placed above their underwear, while their brains were scanned.
Researchers also asked female volunteers how frequently they had had sex over the past year.
As the device vibrated, the somatosensory cortex region of the brain was activated.
Researchers then measured the thickness of that brain area, finding it was bigger in females who reported having more sex.
“We found an association between the frequency of genital intercourse and the thickness of the individually mapped genital field,” explains study co-author Dr. Christine Heim – a professor of medical psychology at Charite University Hospital in Berlin.
This means that the more sex a woman has, the bigger the region of the brain.
This isn’t the first study to look into the benefits of sex on the brain.
Back in 2016, scientists at McGill University in Canada found young women who have regular sex have an easier time remembering things than their less sexually active counterparts.
The researchers clarify that the paper, published in the journal JNeurosci, does not answer questions like whether having a larger area devoted to genital stimulation makes women more sensitive to touch.
“It’s completely under studied, how the female genitals are represented in the somatosensory cortex in humans, and whether it has at all the capacity to change in relation to experience or use,” co-author Christine Heim, a professor of medical psychology at Charite University Hospital in Berlin, told AFP.