Repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation as a Potential Tool to Reduce Sexual Arousal

Hyper- and hyposexuality occur frequently in a variety of psychiatric disorders and are difficult to treat. While there is meta-analytic evidence for the significant effect of non-invasive brain stimulation on drug and food craving, no study has investigated the potential of this technique to modulate sexual behavior. The efficacy of a single session of high-frequency repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) over the left or right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) to reduce sexual arousal was tested against a sham stimulation.

To test this hypothesis, we employed a randomized, double-blind, sham-controlled crossover study design. Nineteen healthy male participants received high-frequency rTMS over the left DLPFC, high-frequency rTMS over the right DLPFC and sham rTMS (each 10 Hz; 110% resting motor threshold; 60 trains with 50 pulses) in randomized and counterbalanced order with a one-week interval between stimulation sessions to avoid carryover effects. Participants were exposed to neutral and sexual cues before and after each intervention and rated their sexual arousal after each block of cue presentation.