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Study Finds Porn Exposure Associated With Smaller Brain Region

Posted by timothy on from the news-for-nerds dept.

New submitter Bodhammer (559311) writes "German researchers looked at the brains of 64 men between the ages of 21 and 45 and found that one brain region (the striatum, linked to reward processing), was smaller in the brains of porn watchers, and that a specific part of the same region is also less activated when exposed to more pornography." While it's tempting to cast blame, "the study doesn't confirm whether watching porn causes the changes, or whether people with a certain brain type are inherently more apt to tune into X-rated content." The study's abstract is available; the paper itself is pay-walled.

6 of 211 comments (clear)

  1. Do you give up higher cerebral function by rmdingler · · Score: 4, Insightful
    in exchange for instant gratification of a primal nature?

    Almost certainly.

    Don't worry though, the reason you'll prosper if you live long is because aging gradually erodes the hold your base urges have upon you.

    --
    Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.

    Ernest Hemingway

    1. Re:Do you give up higher cerebral function by Samantha+Wright · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Don't assume it means anything—the striatum's primary function is coordinating motor control. If there is a meaningful causal link and this study is not just a p-value fishing expedition, it is so convoluted as to be incomprehensible.

      --
      Bio questions? Ask me to start a Q&A journal. Computer analogies available for most topics!
    2. Re:Do you give up higher cerebral function by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Much more importantly, the study found correlation to *self reported porn watching*. Thus it's much more likely what they found was reverse correlation to willingness to lie, or any other number of social constructs.

  2. Does Size Matter? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Seeing as we have no evidence that such an area being smaller is a good or a bad thing I would caution away from using this information as anything more than an observation.

  3. Striatum by Znork · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The striatum is implicated in ADHD and several studies have indicated reduced grey matter volume in that region for ADHD sufferers. Failure in the dopamine pathways will generally cause engagement in dopamine releasing activities, as a method of self medication.

    So it's not like finding a correlation between dopamine seeking and striatum deficiencies is unexpected. And the most likely direction of causation is that the deficient reward region causes the increased porn watching.

    Frankly I find the gleeful reporting on the issue to be somewhat offensive. Insinuating that what is probably an inherent handicap is something the handicapped did to themselves by being 'immoral' is quite disgusting.

  4. Re:Presumably this is relative to porn abstainers by WillKemp · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I watched a TED talk about the effect of pornography on the male brain and the presenter described how difficult it was for him to find control subjects for his study.

    That suggests that they've got their idea of "control" back to front.