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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.

9 of 211 comments (clear)

  1. prost! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    At last a study that concerns /.ers more than any of the other stuff to be found here lately.

    1. Re:prost! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      At last a study that concerns /.ers ...

      What I want to know is where on Earth they found the control group?

    2. Re:prost! by mwvdlee · · Score: 5, Funny

      In other news, lying seems to be associated with a certain larger brain region.

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  2. Re:Presumably this is relative to porn abstainers by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

  3. 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.

    1. Re:Does Size Matter? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      Your girlfriend or wife will say no, it's how you use it, but that's only a half truth.

      Someone with a smaller striatum who knows how to use it is likely going to give more pleasure than someone with a large striatum who is clueless about how the female brain works, but women prefer someone with a large striatum who knows how to use it over either.

      Of course, your striatum can be too large - and despite what you see in the movies, women do not like having their hippocampus jostled by some monster brainpart.

  4. 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.

  5. 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.

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  6. 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.