A drug that seems to drive female rats mad for sex may offer the first real scientific aphrodisiac for women, US and Canadian researchers have said.

James Pfaus of Concordia University in Montreal, Canada, and colleagues there and at Palatin tested the drug on female rats and found it affected their mating behavior.

The drug, Palatin Technologies Inc's PT-141, is being developed for use to fight impotence in men, but the researchers said tests showed it also aroused female rats.

"Accordingly, PT-141 may be the first identified pharmacological agent with the capability to treat female sexual desire disorders," they wrote in their report, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The female rats flirted more when injected with the drug and Pfaus and his colleagues said: "Females treated with the highest dose of PT-141 also attempted to mount the males." In rats, this is considered a sign of sexual impatience.

"Although the sexual behavior of rats is different from that of humans, the effects of pharmacological manipulations of appetitive and consummatory sexual behaviors are similar in male rats and men," the researchers wrote.

The same is probably true of women, they added.

Although the drug was injected into the rats, in human tests for impotence it takes the form of a nasal spray.

PT-141 is the first of a new class of drugs called melanocortin agonists being developed to treat sexual dysfunction.

It may be safer than current impotence drugs because it does not affect the blood vessels. Current drugs increase blood flow and could be dangerous to people on some heart medications.

Source: China Daily/agencies