Women with hypoactive sexual desire disorder compared to normal females: a functional magnetic resonance imaging study.

Lack of sexual interest is the most common sexual complaint among women. However, factors affecting sexual desire in women have rarely been studied. While the role of the brain in integrating the sensory, attentional, motivational, and motor aspects of sexual response is commonly acknowledged as important, little is known about specific patterns of brain activation and sexual interest or response, particularly among women. We compared 20 females with no history of sexual dysfunction (NHSD) to 16 women with hypoactive sexual desire disorder (HSDD) in a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study that included assessment of subjective sexual arousal, peripheral sexual response using a vaginal photoplethysmograph (VPP), as well as brain activation across three time points. Video stimuli included erotic, sports, and relaxing segments. Subjective arousal to erotic stimuli was significantly greater in NHSD participants compared with HSDD. In the erotic-sports contrast, NHSD women showed significantly greater activation in the bilateral entorhinal cortex than HSDD women. In the same contrast, HSDD females demonstrated higher activation than NHSD females in the medial frontal gyrus (Brodmann area (BA) 10), right inferior frontal gyrus (BA 47) and bilateral putamen. There were no between group differences in VPP-correlated brain activation and peripheral sexual response was not significantly associated with either subjective sexual response or brain activation patterns. Findings were consistent across the three experimental sessions. The results suggest differences between women with NHSD and HSDD in encoding arousing stimuli, retrieval of past erotic experiences, or both. The findings of greater activation in BA 10 and BA 47 among women with HSDD suggest that this group allocated significantly more attention to monitoring and/or evaluating their responses than NHSD participants, which may interfere with normal sexual response.

Matrix metalloproteinase-9 and tissue inhibitor of metalloproteinase-3 mRNA expression in ectopic and eutopic endometrium in women with endometriosis: a rationale for endometriotic invasiveness.

OBJECTIVE: To investigate mRNA expression of metalloproteinase-9 (MMP-9) and tissue inhibitor of metalloproteinase-3 (TIMP-3) in ectopic endometriosis tissue and uterine endometrium from women with and without endometriosis throughout the menstrual cycle. DESIGN: Molecular studies in human tissue. SETTING: Department of Gynecology and Obstetrics, Reproductive Immunology Laboratory, Stanford University Medical Center. PATIENT(S): Fifty-three premenopausal woman (23 women with endometriosis and 30 women without endometriosis undergoing laparoscopic surgery). Endometrium and ectopic endometriosis tissue were obtained at the time of surgery. INTERVENTION(S): None. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE(S): mRNA expression from eutopic and ectopic endometrium was analyzed by quantitative, competitive PCR. RESULT(S): Both uterine endometrium and ectopic endometriotic tissue from women with endometriosis expressed significantly (P<.05) lower levels of TIMP-3 than endometrium from normal women. Also, ectopic endometrium expressed higher levels of MMP-9 and a higher ratio of MMP-9/TIMP-3 than eutopic endometrium from normal and endometriosis patients. CONCLUSION(S): These results suggest that ectopic and eutopic endometrium from endometriosis patients may be more invasive and prone to peritoneal implantation because of greater MMP and less TIMP-3 mRNA expression than endometrium from women without endometriosis. Thus, increased proteolytic activity may be one of the reasons for the invasive properties of the endometrium, resulting in the development of endometriosis.

Vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) mRNA splice variants are differentially expressed in human blastocysts.

The aim of our study was to detect and characterize mRNA expression of VEGF isoforms VEGF(121), VEGF(145), VEGF(165), VEGF(189), and VEGF(206) in human blastocysts. We recently demonstrated VEGF mRNA expression during human preimplantation embryo development, and further information regarding the alternatively spliced mRNAs resulting in freely secreted proteins or proteins bound to cell surface heparan-sulphate proteoglycans is needed to better understand the process of angiogenesis during implantation. Human blastocysts unsuitable for transfer obtained from the IVF programme at Stanford University were examined by reverse transcription/hemi-nested polymerase chain reaction for their expression of VEGF mRNA splice variants. VEGF mRNA was expressed in 17 out of 19 (89%) blastocysts. Of the 17 blastocysts, VEGF(121) mRNA was detected in 88%, VEGF(145) mRNA in 100%, VEGF(165) mRNA in 71%, and VEGF(189) mRNA in 24% of blastocysts. There was co-expression of mRNA for VEGF(121) and VEGF(145) only in 29% blastocysts, of mRNA for VEGF(165) and VEGF(145) only in 12%, and of mRNA for VEGF(121), VEGF(145) and VEGF(165) in 59% blastocysts. VEGF(206) mRNA could not be detected. In conclusion, we demonstrated that blastocysts express the mRNAs encoding for the free VEGF proteins, enabling the implanting embryo to immediately induce angiogenesis at the implantation site.