Activation of sensory cortex by imagined genital stimulation: an fMRI analysis.

Background: During the course of a previous study, our laboratory made a serendipitous finding that just thinking about genital stimulation resulted in brain activations that overlapped with, and differed from, those generated by physical genital stimulation.

Objective: This study extends our previous findings by further characterizing how the brain differentially processes physical 'touch' stimulation and 'imagined' stimulation.

Design: Eleven healthy women (age range 29-74) participated in an fMRI study of the brain response to imagined or actual tactile stimulation of the nipple and clitoris.