The role of androgen in male sexual arousal / 中华男科学杂志

ABSTRACT

Sexual arousal is an important factor for the success of sexual behavior, and regulated by the central nervous system, its underlying mechanism is very complicated. Androgen is the most important endocrine hormone in men, which is deeply involved in the whole process of male sexual response, but how it regulates male sexual arousal has not been fully clarified and remains one of the hotspots in current andrological research. Therefore, this paper presents an overview of the advances in the studies of the related role and mechanism of androgen in male sexual arousal. In the central nervous system, androgen regulates the release of dopamine neurotransmitters by binding androgen receptors or metabolizing neurosteroids, thus activating the brain reward system. Besides, androgen regulates the neuronal plasticity and spinous process formation in the neural circuit of sexual arousal to ensure successful activation and conduction of the neural circuit. However, the specific regulating mechanism of sexual arousal remains to be further explored.