Subjectively and phenomenologically, sexual arousal is a state of pleasure, joy, passion, and bodily excitement, followed by delight, positive exhaustion, and relaxation. Biologically, it involves changes in physiological arousal, the release of hormones and neurotransmitters in the autonomic nervous system and the central nervous system. In dimensional biological emotion theories, it represents the highly positive endpoint in the affective space defined by valence and physiological arousal, triggered by internal or external pleasurable and erotic stimuli. From an evolutionary perspective, the purpose of sexual arousal and pleasure is to prime action disposition for approach or avoidance, thereby supporting survival and driving perceptual, cognitive, and emotional resources through motivational systems that prioritize mating and influence decision-making about sexual behaviors.

Sexual arousal and pleasure are both dynamic processes. They are significantly linked and influenced by cognitive and social factors, including mental states, mood, health, and wellbeing, as well as the presence of pain or disorders. Remarkably, both phenomena are shaped by social and contextual factors, such as the language we use to express feelings, bodily states, and desires, the culture we are part of, and the science and arts through which we conceptualize, communicate, connect, and express their content.

This Research Topic integrates various disciplines, including psychology, neuroscience, medicine, biology, linguistics, data science, and arts, to describe, explain, measure, analyze, and express the complex emotional and motivational states, feelings, and expressions of pleasure and sexual arousal.

Special emphasis will be placed on their measurements across different settings and contexts (laboratory versus in the wild), the analysis methods and their automation, the levels of processing and investigation (brain, body, mind), as well as their expression in science, language, culture, and arts. By adopting a transdisciplinary approach, we aim to expand current knowledge and shed light on the underlying neuro-psycho-bio-physiological dynamics of pleasure and desire and sexual arousal, exploring how science and the arts can support the development of interventions for health and well-being across the lifespan, as well as demystify themes of sexuality as part of our identity.

This Research Topic provides a platform for neuroscientific research at the intersection of
psychology, medicine, computer science, engineering, affective neurolinguistics, and the
neuroscience of the arts. It establishes links between disciplines and crosses boundaries to enhance the scientific understanding of pleasure, desire, and sexual arousal, as well as their relevance to mental health, brain health, well-being, social, cultural, cognitive, and affective processing and development. It also explores interventions for lifelong health and healthy aging.

We welcome high-quality manuscripts that explore, but are not restricted to, the following
topics:

1. Neural mechanisms and neural representation of pleasure, desire, and sexual arousal
2. Experimental paradigms and measurement of sexual arousal, desire, and pleasure
3. Analyzing and computing pleasure, desire, and sexual arousal—from signal processing and multimodal recording to automated data analysis
4. Health benefits, clinical applications, and interventions for psychiatric and neurological disorders and healthy aging
5. The perspective of neuroscience and the arts on sexual arousal, pleasure, and desire
6. Linguistic expression of pleasure, desire, and arousal, and its neural embodied representation
7. The role of the arts in neuroscience and language with special emphasis on pleasure
8. Ethics in the investigation of sexuality and identity and vulnerable target groups

We invite submissions from the sciences and arts that employ diverse neuroscientific and psychophysiological methodologies, with a particular interest in approaches that combine neuroscience and the arts. We especially encourage scientific articles that empirically explore the topic under investigation and focus on the methods used. We also appreciate theoretical and conceptual papers, meta-analyses, and reviews.

Are you interested in contributing a manuscript to this Research Topic?

Translating Desire – Psychology, Arts, and the Neuroscience of Pleasure