Researchers investigating sexual behavior claim there is a link between sharper memory function in young women and how often they are having sex.
Neuroscientists at McGill Centre for Studies in Aging at McGill University in Canada studied the relationship between penile-vaginal intercourse (PVI) and memory, particularly how it affects young women. The researchers expanded on previous studies with rats that show a connection between frequency of sex and memories. The research, published in the Archives of Sexual Behavior, revealed a positive association between sex and memory recognition in women between the ages of 18 and 30 years, reports PsyPost.
The effect on memory varied depending on the subject matter. Women with an active sex life had better memory for name and word recognition than facial recognition.
“Previous experimentally controlled rodent studies had shown a relationship between frequency of sexual experience and memory function,” Larah Maunder, a neuroscientist and co-author of the study, told PsyPost. “We wanted to see whether this relationship held up in humans, which is how we became interested in this topic.”
The researchers provided a memory recognition test to 78 undergraduate women between the ages of 18 and 30 years to begin the study. After the test, the women filled out a survey covering demographics, GPA, use of contraceptives, sexual activity and exercise habits.
The study suggests sexual activity specifically impacts memories reliant on the hyppocampus, which is engaged in storing memories related to words. It remains unclear what the direct impact sex has on memory is, only proving there is a relationship between frequency of sexual intercourse and memory.
“Future experiments which might be able to control some of the here assessed variables more systematically might eventually be able to tell us the direct effects of varying amounts of sexual behaviour on memory function,” Maunder told PsyPost. “As the study is correlational, it doesn’t prove cause and effect. What future studies will have to add is the origin of this finding, and indeed whether there is a causal relationship.”
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