Male Psychological Health and Sexual Dysfunction

Traditional models of male sexual dysfunction have predominantly focused on peripheral physiology—vascular health, hormone levels, and penile hemodynamics. However, sexual response is fundamentally a brain-driven and psychological process. The past five years have witnessed an explosion of research utilizing neuroimaging (fMRI) to decode the neural correlates of male sexual arousal, inhibition, and dysfunction.

This Special Issue addresses a critical gap: the need for a mechanistic understanding of how psychological factors (anxiety, depression), emotional dysregulation, cognitive distortions, and brain functional or structural alterations revealed by neuroimaging collectively contribute to the onset and maintenance of male sexual dysfunction.

The scope of submissions includes: male psychological and psychiatric disorders, male sexual dysfunctions (desire, erection, ejaculation), and sexual behavior disorders (including psychosexual disorders and disorders of sexual orientation). The focus is primarily on emotional, cognitive, and neuroimaging research, encompassing both clinical and basic mechanistic studies.

We invite cutting-edge contributions exploring:

(1) studies of male sexual function, psychosexual disorders, and sexual orientation obsessive-compulsive disorders, encompassing emotional, cognitive, and neuroimaging mechanisms;

(2) the mechanisms underlying the role of anxiety, depression, and cognitive issues in the onset of male sexual dysfunction, psychosexual disorders, and sexual orientation obsessive-compulsive disorders;

(3) neuroimaging biomarker studies of male sexual dysfunction, psychosexual disorders, and sexual orientation obsessive-compulsive disorders;

(4) clinical and mechanistic studies of male psychological and psychiatric disorders;

(5) clinical and mechanistic studies of male sexual dysfunction, psychosexual disorders, and sexual orientation obsessive-compulsive disorders.

By bridging affective neuroscience, cognitive psychology, and clinical andrology, this issue aims to establish a new neuropsychiatric framework for diagnosing and treating male sexual dysfunction, psychological and psychiatric disorders—moving beyond symptom management to circuit-based interventions.