Not tonight dear, I had zymosan A injected into my hind paw

This study was published in the Journal of Neuroscience, and the strongly worded quote above is how the authors chose to conclude their abstract. They go to great lengths to “prove” that the loss of libido was due to lack of sexual motivation in the female mice, rather than a direct consequence of pain. The authors also stretch the clinical applicability (and evolutionary validity) of their work a bit beyond belief, in my view. Why? Perhaps because promoting a viable animal model of low sexual motivation in women will ultimately serve drug development purposes (Farmer et al., 2014):The link between pain and sexual motivation is evident in human sexual relations. The widespread aphorism, “Not tonight, dear, I have a headache” refers to a lack of sexual motivation due to pain. No clinical data exist on the direct impact of pain on sexual motivation, yet high prevalence of reduced sexual desire in chronic pain populations (Basson et al., 2010; Fine, 2011) suggest that pain may adversely influence sexual motivation. It's not exactly true that “No clinical data exist on the direct impact of pain on sexual motivation...” (as we'll see later), but first let's take a look at the actual study.1 Pairs of vigorously mating mice were assigned to either male “open field” or female “paced mating” situations, which mimics their respective natural preferences. One member of each pair was injected with a pain-inducing inflammatory compound (zymosan A or λ-carrageen...
Source: The Neurocritic - Category: Psychiatrists and Psychologists Authors: Source Type: blogs