- Hypersexuality is extremely frequent in increased libido.
- Hypersexuality is currently controversial whether it should be included as a clinical diagnosis used by mental healthcare professionals.
- Nymphomania and Satyriasis were terms previously used for the condition in women and men, respectively.
Causes:
- Some research suggests that some cases can be linked to biochemical or physiological changes that accompany dementia.
- Psychological needs also complicate the biological explanation, which identifies the temporal/frontal lobe of the brain as the area for regulating libido.
- Persons suffering from injuries to this part of the brain are at increased risk for aggressive behavior and other behavioral problems including personality changes and socially inappropriate sexual behavior such as hypersexuality.
- The same symptom can occur after a unilateral temporal lobotomy.
- There are other biological factors that are associated with hypersexuality such as premenstrual changes, and the exposure to virilizing hormones in childhood or in utero.
- In research involving the use of antiandrogens to reduce undesirable sexual behavior such as hypersexuality, testosterone has been found to be necessary, but not sufficient, for sexual drive.
- Other proposed factors include a lack of physical closeness and forgetfulness of the recent past.
- Pathogenic overactivity of the dopaminergic mesolimbic pathway in the brain—forming either psychiatrically, during mania, or pharmacologically, as a side effect of dopamine agonists, specifically D3-preferring agonists—is associated with various addictions and has been shown to result among some in overindulgent, sometimes hypersexual, behavior.
- HPA axis dysregulation has been associated with hypersexual disorder.
- The American Association for Sex Addiction Therapy acknowledges biological factors as contributing causes of sex addiction. Other associated factors include psychological components (which affect mood and motivation as well as psychomotoric and cognitive function), spiritual control, mood disorders, sexual trauma, and intimacy anorexia as causes or type of sex addiction.