“Sex Chip” In Development To Stimulate Pleasure In The Brain

Scientists are apparently working on an electronic “Sex Chip” that can be implanted in the brain to stimulate the orbitofrontal cortex – the area associated with pleasurable activities such as sex and eating. One professor even predicts that by 2015 we’ll have implants controlled with hand-held transmitters, potentially giving rise to push-button-pleasure.

The technology stems from deep brain stimulation treatments used in America on Parkinson’s disease sufferers, in which implanted electrodes deliver shocks to under-stimulated areas of the brain.

The chip would be used as a treatment for sufferers of anhedonia who are generally unable to feel pleasure, but has the potential to go mainstream – bringing on-demand pleasure to the masses…well, at least those brave enough to undergo the surgery.

The procedure has a successful precedent too. Neurosurgery professor Tipu Aziz claims a woman with a low libido was treated with the technology a few years ago and was transformed into a very sexually-active woman. She had the electrodes removed however – not fancying the sudden jolt from prudishness to promiscuity.

I guess there’s a lesson in there somewhere – like how the brain is highly complex and that shooting jolts through it may have unexpected and/or unpleasant consequences. But what do I know. I’m too distracted by Seven of Nine who due to being sex personified, doesn’t require an another implant.

Sources:
Times Online and Telegraph