Oxytocin: For Her

Oxytocin is a hormone released in the brain associated primarily with bonding. In women, it plays a role in reproductive functions like birth and lactation, and orgasm. Over at Neurotopia has developed a fast and furious tutorial about this hormone’s role as it regards the female orgasm:

• During sexual arousal, oxytocin increases rapidly, with a big burst at orgasm.
• Oxytocin levels correlate to sexual arousal in women, as well as the amount of vaginal lubrication present.
• Oxytocin fluctuates along with a woman’s menstrual cycle, being highest in the ovulatory phase and follicular phase, and lowest in the luteal phase (The follicular phase and ovulatory phase are the preparation and release of the egg, respectively, and fertility will peak at ovulation for obvious reasons. The luteal phase is the phase after ovulation, as the egg sits around and grows old until the shedding of the uterine lining during menstruation at the end of the month).

Information from Neurotopia.