The most common form of female sexual dysfunction is abnormally low Sexual Desire, a condition known by medical professionals as hypoactive sexual desire disorder, or HSDD. Just a few years back, it seemed possible that a drug called Addyi might sharply reduce the incidence of HSDD, a problem that can — and often does — sabotage intimate relationships.

As it turned out, Addyi produces only marginal improvements in female sexual desire and is so expensive that it is available only to a limited number of the women suffering from HSDD. Addyi’s disappointing performance has helped to increase the demand for some form of therapy that will really get the job done.

Direct Brain Stimulation

Enter direct brain stimulation, a procedure that proponents believe could improve the brain’s handling of subtle sexual cues and, most importantly, fire up the libido not only in women but also in men.

Spearheading the scientific exploration into the potential of brain stimulation as a means to increase sexual desire is neuroscientist Nicole Prause, who in 2015 founded Liberos LLC, a sexual biotechnology company.  She founded Los Angeles-based Liberos after roughly a decade of research at the Sexual Psychophysiology and Affective Neuroscience Laboratory. Based at the University of California, Los Angeles, the laboratory conducted research at UCLA and the Mind Research Network as well.

Two Forms of Stimulation

In an interview for an article posted at NYMag.com, Prause told writer Lilly O’Donnell that direct brain stimulation was similar in some respects to electroconvulsive therapy “but much more targeted and not nearly so dangerous.” Prause said that Liberos is currently looking at two different forms of brain stimulation: transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) and direct current stimulation (DCS).

Prause likened the effects of DCS to those of Viagra and the other on-demand drugs for the treatment of erectile dysfunction. Because the effects of DCS are short-lived — roughly 30 minutes — it’s a procedure that could be used as needed in advance of sexual activity. DCS, said Prause, sends a weaker, more diffused electrical current to the brain, compared with the stronger and highly focused current used in TMS.

Approved to Treat Depression

Already approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration as a therapy for treatment-resistant depression, Prause and her colleagues are examining TMS as a long-lasting and possibly permanent treatment for low sexual desire. Its effects are very similar in both men and women. Sixty percent of those patients who’ve used TMS therapy to treat intractable depression have gone into remission within three years, according to Prause.

Prause, together with Greg Siegle of the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and three scientists from UCLA’s Brain Mapping Center, recently completed a study on the effects of TMS on sexual arousal. That study was published in a late 2016 issue of “PLOS One.”

20 Men and Women Recruited

The research team recruited 20 men and women, each of whom had had at least two opposite-sex sexual partners over the previous 12 months. Participants were first subjected to two forms of theta burst stimulation (TBS), a type of TMS thought to affect the brain’s reward processing mechanisms.

Continuous-wave TBS is believed to inhibit areas of the brain linked to reward conditioning, while intermittent-wave TBS is associated with an increase in activity of areas of the brain associated with reward conditioning. The brain activity of these test subjects was then monitored and recorded as their genitals were stimulated with vibrators. Those who received intermittent-wave TBS therapy showed a marked increase in brain activity linked to sexual reward conditioning, while those who got continuous-wave TBS showed the opposite reaction.

Clinical Trial Is Next Step

Prause told NYMag.com that the results of the 2016 study confirmed the benefits of TMS on human response to sexual stimuli. She said the next step likely will be a clinical trial during which study participants will be subjected to multiple rounds of TMS in an attempt to evaluate its long-term efficacy.

Prause stressed that direct brain stimulation — whether it’s TMS or DCS — is designed primarily to normalize sexual desire in individuals who are suffering from a loss of interest in and desire for sex. It’s not going to turn someone with a normal sex drive into some sort of sex-crazed maniac, she said.

Winning FDA approval for TMS therapy designed specifically for the treatment of low sexual desire could take years. However, Prause noted, doctors could technically start prescribing TMS off-label immediately. As previously noted, TMS has already won FDA approval as a treatment for intractable depression.

DCS Getting Most Interest

Prause told NYMag.com that early market research shows greater interest in DCS, which has relatively short-lived effects on sexual desire, than for TMS. This came as a surprise to her because she believed most subjects would prefer the longer-lasting treatment. She also said that her colleagues and she have developed a prototype headset for DCS treatment. The device they envision has two sensors — one on the forehead and one under the chin. Electrical stimulation via the headset for roughly 20 minutes would hopefully make the brain much more receptive to sexual cues than it would be otherwise, thus making it easier to achieve arousal.

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