Dr. Nan Wise on How The Brain Controls Desire, Pleasure, and Orgasm

Sex therapist and neuroscientist Dr. Nan Wise talks about her incredible book Why Good Sex Matters: Understand the Neuroscience of Pleasure for a Smarter, Happier, and More Purpose Filled Life. Dr. Wise was a well-regarded sex therapist when she decided to go back to school to become a neuroscientist! She did an infamous study where she put people in fMRI machines, asked them to orgasm, then studied what parts of their brain lit up. This woman knows more about the sex and brain connection than anyone I know Quote: “Although we know our brains are involved in and contribute to sex, my research suggests that our brains largely control sex and pleasure.”

 

Dr. Nan Wise is a licensed psychotherapist, cognitive neuroscientist, certified sex therapist, board certified clinical hypnotherapist, and certified relationship specialist with three decades of experience. Driven by an intense desire to understand how the brain operates to create moods and behaviors, she returned to academia in 2009 to purse a Ph.D. in cognitive neuroscience at Rutgers-Newark where completed her dissertation project, “Genital stimulation, imagery, and orgasm in women: an fMRI analysis” in August of 2014. Her research has attempted to address gaps in the scientific literature regarding the neural basis of human sexuality, and has as a result, garnered international attention.  Dr. Wise has recently published two scientific papers, Activation of sensory cortex by imagined genital stimulation an fMRI analysis (2016)" and "Brain Activity Unique to Orgasm in Women: An fMRI Analysis (2017) and is the coauthor of Peripheral and Central Neural Bases of Orgasm in The Textbook of Female Sexual Functioning (2018).  She is the author of Why Good Sex Matters: Understand the Neuroscience of Pleasure for a Smarter, Happier, and More Purpose Filled life.

Sex therapist and neuroscientist Dr. Nan Wise talks about her incredible book Why Good Sex Matters: Understand the Neuroscience of Pleasure for a Smarter, Happier, and More Purpose Filled Life. Dr. Wise was a well-regarded sex therapist when she decided to go back to school to become a neuroscientist! She did an infamous study where she put people in fMRI machines, asked them to orgasm, then studied what parts of their brain lit up. This woman knows more about the sex and brain connection than anyone I know Quote: “Although we know our brains are involved in and contribute to sex, my research suggests that our brains largely control sex and pleasure.”

 

Dr. Nan Wise is a licensed psychotherapist, cognitive neuroscientist, certified sex therapist, board certified clinical hypnotherapist, and certified relationship specialist with three decades of experience. Driven by an intense desire to understand how the brain operates to create moods and behaviors, she returned to academia in 2009 to purse a Ph.D. in cognitive neuroscience at Rutgers-Newark where completed her dissertation project, “Genital stimulation, imagery, and orgasm in women: an fMRI analysis” in August of 2014. Her research has attempted to address gaps in the scientific literature regarding the neural basis of human sexuality, and has as a result, garnered international attention.  Dr. Wise has recently published two scientific papers, Activation of sensory cortex by imagined genital stimulation an fMRI analysis (2016)" and "Brain Activity Unique to Orgasm in Women: An fMRI Analysis (2017) and is the coauthor of Peripheral and Central Neural Bases of Orgasm in The Textbook of Female Sexual Functioning (2018).  She is the author of Why Good Sex Matters: Understand the Neuroscience of Pleasure for a Smarter, Happier, and More Purpose Filled life.