Men who report watching a lot of pornography tend to have less volume and activity in regions of the brain linked to rewards and motivation, says a new German study. The study was published in JAMA Psychiatry, which is under the auspices of the American Medical Association. The study’s lead author, Simone Kühn, from the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin, noted, the results provide the first evidence for a link between pornography consumption and reductions in brain size and brain activity in response to sexual stimuli. For the study, she and her colleague Jurgen Gallinat from Charite University, also in Berlin, recruited 64 healthy men between the ages of 21 and 45 years and asked them questions about their porn-watching habits. They also took images of the men’s brains to measure volume and to see how their brains reacted to pornographic pictures. “We found that the volume of the so-called striatum, a brain region that has been associated with reward processing and motivated behavior was smaller the more pornography consumption the participants reported,” Kühn said. “Moreover we found that another brain region, that is also part of the striatum that is active when people see sexual stimuli, shows less activation the more pornography participants consumed,” she added. What’s more, the researchers found that the connection between the striatum and prefrontal cortex, which is the outer layer of the brain associated with behavior and decision making, worsened with increased porn watching.
Author’s note: This is more than just porn causing some sort of “couch potato” syndrome, because it’s a deeper hook than merely getting caught up in watching television shows or sporting events – it’s an outward (completely nonessential) activity which directly links to the brain and, furthermore, its tied into our psychological feelings and emotions about the opposite sex, our own sexuality, and how we ultimately seek out and receive pleasure. For example, when I first discovered “adult” video stores and the X-rated theaters and porn shops, in the days before internet smut, I would sit for hours in the darkened screening rooms and booths endlessly watching porn and masturbating; I felt like the semi-wasted character played by Robert Duvall in “THX-1138,” who went into a sort of comatose state when viewing the hardcore violence and sex shows that played round the clock on the state-sanctioned televisions. It was mind-numbing; and, when I was there – time ceased. Some days, I would go into these places with the sun high in the sky, to only reemerge, bleary eyed and staggering, into the after-midnight blackness. The rest of the time, I was often listless and tired; I overslept and was constantly wondering about how and when my next porn fix would arrive. It was a continual nightmare that I couldn’t get out of, yet, unbeknownst to me – it all led to a sicker and more twisted chamber of hell. Because my brain functions had been so dulled by porn, I was easy pickings and eventually became embroiled in the sleazy business of the porn industry and prostitution.