Study Finds Porn Exposure Associated With Smaller Brain Region 211
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.
prost! (Score:5, Funny)
At last a study that concerns /.ers more than any of the other stuff to be found here lately.
Re:prost! (Score:5, Funny)
At last a study that concerns /.ers ...
What I want to know is where on Earth they found the control group?
Re:prost! (Score:5, Funny)
In other news, lying seems to be associated with a certain larger brain region.
Re:prost! (Score:4)
+1
That was exactly my thoughts.
This smaller brain region could also be associated to "I don't care what you think" or "My sexual life is fine, porn and masturbation are a part of it".
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I know you're half-joking, but there are likely millions of other men out there in the US (including myself) alone that could say the same thing. Porn use (and in some cases addiction) is pervasive but hardly universal.
Do you give up higher cerebral function (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Do you give up higher cerebral function (Score:5, Interesting)
in exchange for instant gratification of a primal nature?
Almost certainly.
Hahaha. But don't assume. OP left out something that is important to keep in mind here: most people in modern society watch pornography to some extent. They even admit to it in polls (which means the polls probably don't count everybody who really does).
Putting 2 and 2 together, that means that the people with the larger brain region are the abnormal ones. You should be asking what THEY "give up" in exchange for this deviance (from the norm, that is).
Re:Do you give up higher cerebral function (Score:5, Insightful)
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But the striatum interacts with other brain structures such as the frontostriatal circuit, which does mediate behaviour.
Re:Do you give up higher cerebral function (Score:5, Informative)
Now that I've had a chance to sit down and read through both the study and a few other things... you're correct, but it's not completely clear-cut, at least in my opinion, that the changes under consideration actually relate to reward-seeking, addict-like behaviour and aren't simply, say, a lack of sexual development due to being single.
They found a variety of different features in their test subjects (actual anatomical differences, differences in activity level within the caudate, differences in interconnectedness between pudamen and caudate...) and saw these were strongly correlated with level of pornography use, on the basis of addiction. However, there were some people in the study who used alcohol in a mildly problematic way. They showed only a r = ~0.25 (weak positive correlation) with porn usage. That strikes me as pretty inconsistent—if these are pathways strongly implicated in addictive behaviour, why didn't the drunks line up more neatly with their data? They don't mention alcoholism again in the discussion, except to draw parallels between porn usage and various forms of drug usage, and to suggest psychiatrists should ask about porn usage.
other things would be better, alcohol metabolism (Score:5, Informative)
Alcoholism would be among the least useful compulsive behaviors to compare because a large percentage of alcoholics metabolize alcohol differently than non-alcoholics. Therefore a significant portion of the problem is purely physical, not behavioral or centered in the brain. Potheads might be a better comparison - as far as we know, everyone's body processes THC in essentially the same way. There are of course many other compulsive behaviors that seem to be purely psychological / behavioral / brain-based, as opposed to being caused in part by differences in other bodily systems.
Specifically, we know that the difference in alcohol processing is not a RESULT of drinking because non-drinkers who were siblings of alcoholics often displayed the same trait. It appears likely that these siblings were genetically predisposed to become alcoholics, but had not activated the condition by introducing alcohol into their system. The metabolic difference happens after alcohol turns into acetaldehyde. Most people have TWO enzymes that quickly break down the acetaldehyde. Many alcoholics are missing one of the two enzymes, which is controlled by a certain gene that has been mapped. With one of the enzymes missing, the acetaldehyde remains for a much longer period of time. During the period that acetaldehyde is present in significant amounts, the alcoholic experiences the phenomenon of craving - an overpowering desire for more alcohol. Therefore, it seems that alcoholism is largely caused by the lack of an important enzyme, rather than a difference in brain function.
Of course, if a person who is missing the enzyme never becomes intoxicated in the first place, the craving will not be triggered. Also, there are many people who drink excessively but do not lack the enzyme and therefore probably do not have the craving effect. There are of course behavioral and psychological factors involved for these people, who could be called "hard drinkers".
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Does it mean that we can supply the enzyme to the body and cure alcoholism?
I doubt it, in most cases. Maybe prevent some. (Score:5, Interesting)
Consider another well-known disease that involves a missing compound needed for metabolism - diabetes. Supplying insulin helps a diabetic patient, but doesn't "cure" the disease.
It certainly seems plausible that by identifying people who lack the enzyme and either a) providing the enzyme or b) warning them of the problem, many cases could be avoided. People who lack the enzyme but abstain from alcohol seem to be okay generally, so that would seem a reasonable strategy. However, digestion of food creates alcohol, so that's an area where further study may be needed.
The other thing is, once you take care of the enzyme in an active alcoholic, you're left with just a regular drug addict - alcohol is a drug, of course. You've treated the thing that makes alcohol addicts different from other addicts, but they're still an addict. We know also that alcoholism includes some positive feedback cycles. People often have a drink when negative events happens in their lives. When they drink excessively, that causes more negative events. The alcoholic typically ends up in a cycle of dependency. Indeed, it seems that many people identified as alcoholic have only the psychological dependance and are not lacking the indicated enzyme. Enzyme therapy therefore wouldn't be expected to work in these "type II" drinkers. It may turn "type I" (enzymatic alcoholics) into type II (psychologically dependent), but that doesn't seem to be a huge win. Enzyme therapy would probably need to be combined with treatment for the psychological side as well
Looking at it another way, there are two primary issues with alcoholics. A) when they drink, they can't stop and B) they start drinking, even given the knowledge of B. Treating A doesn't fix the odd metal obsession that we see manifested in B.
Re:other things would be better, alcohol metabolis (Score:4, Insightful)
LMGTFY (Score:2)
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=metabolis... [lmgtfy.com]
Please understand the isozyme is nothing more or less than a key difference between those addicted to alcohol vs those addicted to other drugs. It indicates one reason that a subject may become addicted to alcohol, and one reason that alcohol addiction differs from other drugs. Therefore it doesn't explain the totality of alcoholism - fix the enzyme and you're still left a drug addict, and involved with drug addiction. See also:
http://slashdot.org/comments.p... [slashdot.org]
Try ctrl-F (Score:2)
It seems I've struck a nerve. Perhaps you've been personally affected by alcoholism or alcohol abuse in your family and have some strong feelings about it. I can relate - most men in my family have abused alcohol, and done all which that entails.
> the first hit on your search is the wikipedia entry which has no mention of alcoholism, addiction or craving or really ANYTHING about your theory. How amazing is it that this straight-forward and obvious explanation for the majority of alcohol addiction isn'
Re:Do you give up higher cerebral function (Score:4, Informative)
Just for your convenience, then, here are all the statistics from the paper:
And just because it's so important to the science, the rest of the results:
As for alternative hypotheses, the only one they present is "Individuals with lower striatum volume may need more external stimulation to experience pleasure and might therefore experience pornography consumption as more rewarding, which may in turn lead to higher PHs."
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> Don't assume it means anything—the striatum's primary function is coordinating motor control.
Perhaps it does not have to develop as much when all it is controlling is muscles for the elbow and wrist? ;)
Re:Do you give up higher cerebral function (Score:4, Insightful)
Porn is not really an easily defined term. Any study that wants to be taken seriously needs to be very explicit as to what they are defining as "porn".
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Any study that wants to be taken seriously needs to be very explicit as to what they are defining as "porn".
Well, Duh, porn ain't worth squat if it isn't explicit.
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Heck, when I was assigned to read, "The Scarlet Letter" in high school, it was immediately clear that it wasn't great writing. It was just 1800's porn.
Its good to know that you were such a fine literary critic as to dismiss one of the classic pieces of American literature in high school. Not everyone is certain of just how smart they are and how dumb everyone else is in high school.
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Forgive me if I dont think being in high school lit qualifies one to remark on the merits of literature. And frankly it isnt surprising that a highschooler holds a high view of himself and a condescending view towards others.
And-- its been about a decade and a half-- but as I recall there were significant themes of revenge, forgiveness, guilt, and so on in the book. It was also one of the first views I (and Im sure many others) got of puritan culture from a writer of the period.
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significant themes of revenge, forgiveness, guilt
There is plenty of that in modern porn too. That in no way indicates quality writing.
It was also one of the first views I (and Im sure many others) got of puritan culture from a writer of the period.
Your ignor
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Much of what we see day to day in technically non-porn magazines, billboards, TV commercials, signage in department stores, etc. would have been considered to be porn at various times in our history.
Ha! I knew it! Advertising causes smaller brains!
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Porn is not really an easily defined term.
I would tend to disagree - and you hint at the definition yourself: "...it was immediately clear that it wasn't great writing. It was just 1800's porn." I think one of the things that make up porn is the fact that it is void of anything worthwhile, unless you appreciate its one selling point. In fact, you can extend the definition of porn to a lot of other products that use media to deliver this kind of monotonous, narrowly focused form without content. Like computer games that are all gore and no story, or
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If it makes your dick hard, it's porn.
That's easy, but subjective. There is a wide range of subject matter that is porn for *somebody*, but not necessarily everybody. Since the study measures consumption is hours per week, it would appear that the data for hours is self-reported, so each subject applies their own definition to their viewing habits
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If they are using each person's individual definition of porn, then their data is completely invalid. They in no way measured porn consumption.
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Log off Mr. Cruise, no one here is gonna buy it.
Re:Do you give up higher cerebral function (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.
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Hahaha. But don't assume. OP left out something that is important to keep in mind here: most people in modern society watch pornography to some extent. They even admit to it in polls (which means the polls probably don't count everybody who really does).
Only by strenuously avoiding advertising can one avoid pornography. You only see soft-core stuff in public places, to be sure, but pornography is material designed to arouse the prurient interest. The definition does not include "not for commercial gain", oh the irony if it did. How many people do you know that look away from commercials because they contain an attractive person, dressed so as to accentuate their attributes? They're watching porn.
The truth! (Score:3)
The truth is that the brain region is used for lying, it is smaller in men who admit to watching porn and larger for men who lie about it.
In women it is about the size of a coconut.
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I think that the correlation and cause is interesting here, and I doubt that the brain shrinks because the person watches porn, it's more likely that the reward processing area is small from the beginning and therefore requires more stimuli to produce the sufficient effect.
Another question is also if the persons with restrictions in the reward processing drives themselves harder than those with a more developed reward processing. This leads to the counterpart - the person with a well-developed reward area t
Presumably this is relative to porn abstainers (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Presumably this is relative to porn abstainers (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.
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Somehow I'd bet the brain area in question is larger in compulsive liars, regardless of the exposure to adult entertainment.
Re:Presumably this is relative to porn abstainers (Score:5, 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.
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Probably this one:
http://youtu.be/wSF82AwSDiU [youtu.be]
This video started a journey for me that is still continuing. Anyone interested should check out the links in the About text on the YouTube page.
The correlation reported in the study was relative to hours per week (actually, the square root of that), so although there were no full abstainers there were some participants who watched less porn than others.
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Re: Presumably this is relative to porn abstainers (Score:3)
People have had sex in an MRI machine. Though not while doing brain scans (they were fMRI ing the abdominal area).
Re: Presumably this is relative to porn abstainers (Score:5, Interesting)
Though not while doing brain scans (they were fMRI ing the abdominal area)
Quite likely because orgasams are not created in the brain, they happen in a small bundle of neurons at the base of the spine, in fact a fresh corpse is capable of orgasam if the area is stimulated with a mild electric current. Further if you wire this up in a live rat so all it has to do is pull a lever to get an orgasm, it will hang off the lever until it dies of dehydration.
As to TFA, if video porn is shrinking your brain, what is a good sex life doing to it? Seriously, if you have a healthy sex life then watching porn together is quite often a part of that. Also watching porm does not imply that you like ALL porn anymore than watching a cartoon means you like all cartoons. Males are much more likely to enjoy porn because males are (in general) are much more sensitive to visual stimulation. Also a faie chunk of the porn out there is not catering to sexual desire, it's catering to the desire for power (SM), or catering to catholic style guilt, ie people who revel in being "dirty" (ATM).
To paraphrase Sagan, Science is more than a grab-bag of factoids, it's a philosophy, a way of thinking. I have no doubt these people carefully observed something interesting, but it seems to me they have prematurely jumped on the conclusion mat that best fits their worldview. OTOH it does generate way more questions than it answers, and according to Natural philosophy [wikipedia.org], that's a GoodThing(TM)
Re:Presumably this is relative to porn abstainers (Score:4, Interesting)
"Where did they find them?"
after the teenage burst, its really easy to quit porn. when i was a teen porn there was no such thing as too much porn, but the older i got the less interested in it i was. i think my record is 3 years no porn and of course no masturbation. but then again i am not typical and haven't even had sex, despite being 36 years old. and yes i am still living in my parents basement. but i pay rent to them they needed the extra income and they are getting older and it is good to see them once in a while.
Re:Presumably this is relative to porn abstainers (Score:5, Informative)
i think my record is 3 years no porn and of course no masturbation. but then again i am not typical and haven't even had sex, despite being 36 years old.
Correct. You are not typical. Your experience may be very normal in a community you would identify with such as asexuality [asexuality.org], or it could potentially be associated with a disorder, such as hyposexuality [wikipedia.org].
Your situation may be entirely healthy and rewarding for you, and that's great. And, frankly, you have probably saved a lot of money, time and heartache compared to many of us on the other side of that spectrum! I would just caution you not to use it as a yardstick for most other people in judging questions of sexuality.
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there's no orgasm worth a lifetime affliction
That's why we have no fault divorce nowadays. - Yet another thing you ungrateful little snots can thank us "boomers" for. Oh, and you're on my lawn, you know what to do!
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To each their own, but I'd reconsider the hooker suggestion and just stick with the porn, there's no orgasm worth a lifetime affliction....
There is one affliction worth the trouble. It's the one that eventually makes you a grandparent.
And hell, by the time you have grandkids, you don't have to tell them what granny did for a living. It's like a Christmas lie.
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Amish communities?
Does Size Matter? (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.
Re:Does Size Matter? (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.
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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.
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means. [youtube.com]
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Condoms are the biggest factor in sexual pleasure for both partners. It's really hard to find good ones that fit, at least in my experience, and using the wrong ones is no good for either partner. Of course it's better not to use them at all if you have no concerns about disease or pregnancy, but depending on your lifestyle that might not be possible.
Someone needs to invent something better than a condom.
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Does size matter? Not when you're fapping to porn I guess.
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Chances are, a person who possesses the physical characteristics most folks find attractive will have more opportunities to engage in the dance with no pants. If s/he turns down 90% of them, s/he may still have a more complete dance card than a discerning average-looking test subject with a 50% rejection rate.
Does a greater number of partners equal greater probability of being referred to as Jezebel, the noble slut god?
bunch of liars (Score:3, Funny)
In other words, people with a smaller brain region are less capable of speaking the truth.
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And KiloBytes seem to have a problem with reading comprehension.
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There are three kinds of men: /etc
* those who admit to watching porn / ogling women
* those who lie
* those below the age of 12
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I think binarylarry's assumption is that people lie by saying they don't read/watch/use porn when they do, rather than lie that they do when they don't. (Based on the assumption that it's socially more acceptable to deny that accusation.) And therefore, the ones claiming non-use are the liars, and thus the larger striatum was a component of the propensity of or capacity for lying.
Well, (Score:2)
...
Peer reviewed? (Score:2)
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Only by these guys http://www.xxxchurch.com/ [xxxchurch.com].
Lemme get this straight... (Score:5, Funny)
Correlation does not imply causation (Score:2, Insightful)
More pseudoscience. They say that they're not sure whether this means that porn shrinks your brain, or if the shrunken brain causes porn viewing. But, this leaves out the very real possibility that this correlation means nothing whatsoever. The site below collects correlations that look pretty convincing in the graphs, but quite obviously are unlikely to be cases of causation in either direction:
http://www.tylervigen.com/ [tylervigen.com]
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Some of the most inspired ideas came with little heads.
In fact, to cure "smaller portions" I've noticed porn is a "swell" idea
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Well, sure, there are many correlations among things that obviously have no relationship to each other. If you take all data on all topics under the sun, I'm sure you can find tons of coincidences.
But we do know that the brain influences behavior, and our experience shapes our brain. Therefore, it stands to reason that it's pretty likely that watching porn causes a small striatum, or a small striatum causes men to watch more porn, or some other factor is causing both. It might be a coincidence from that dat
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It's a technical paper in a medical journal. The intended audience doesn't need to be taught the fundamentals of statistics. That's why it was 'left out'.
everyone's a brain scientist now (Score:4, Insightful)
This is an interesting question to research but I wish TFA wasn't paywalled b/c there are several factors they'd need to address that aren't mentioned in the description.
1. is this just *watching* porn or watching and fapping...also fapping w/o any physical media stimuli
2. they'd need to compare a control test with a completely different behavior/stimuli that triggers those same parts of the brain...it's "reward center" so maybe something with video games or receiving compliments on your appearance
3. what about actual sex? does it do the same thing to this part of the brain? I know /.'ers probably can't imagine this but it's possible to have sex too much so I'd definitey need to see if actual sex is any different than their results with porn.
those are some good starters...plenty of room for further research which means job security ;)
Re:everyone's a brain scientist now (Score:4, Interesting)
As someone with a long history of depression and high intelligence I've spent quite a bit of time trying to understand my condition. One thing I've noted frequently is that I tend to derive less enjoyment than other people from most activities. (I think this is a cause of the depression rather than a result of it.) The most notable exception is sexual gratification, whether from sex with a partner or from masturbation. I don't find this surprising as I think that it is such a basic part of the way our brains are wired. Given that I am not in a relationship more often than I am, I frequently watch porn to masturbate.
So in my case, I'd say it seems likely that a deficiency in the part of the brain associated with reward processing causes a greater exposure to porn.
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"I think this is a cause of the depression rather than a result of it."
Third possibility: it *is* the depression.
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I don't quite get how what he says would go against what is known about depression? Apart from a short time of excessive popularity for the serotonin theory of depression, most of the time multiple neuro transmittors and brain regions have been implicated, with frustratingly difficult to trace causes and effects. Failures in the reward system could easily feed back into lower motivation leading into failures leading into depression, just as the other way around would lead to similar effects.
On the topic of
everyone's consuming porn now (Score:2)
I missed this in TFA...didn't see any distinction made or definition of "consuming" as including fapping.
Where did you get that?
Striatum (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.
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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.
That is actually a very good point. The constraints of society are possibly very connected to Pornography and it's use. SO acting like it's all hairy palms and "Yer brain is a-gonna shrink!" is just nastiness.
Men's primal reproductive urges are not intrinsically tied into monogamy. Whereas women do have a strong interest in getting and keeping one male.
A male can father a lot of offspring, so it is possible that there was some reproductive advantage to serial partners. From his standpoint. It is interest
I named it. (Score:2)
Are we talking about the big brain or the little brain?
Was smaller in the brains of porn watchers, i.e., (Score:2)
Yeah, well... (Score:2)
... at least my forearms are huge.
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Simple enough (Score:2)
The smaller the reward region of the brain, the more porn it takes to activate it.
Too late (Score:2)
This made it on /. too late, local media here is already spinning it as "porn makes you stupid (and blind)".
Well (Score:3, Informative)
Once you jack off to Japanese girls puking in each other's mouths, you can't exactly go back to Playboy.
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Once you jack off to Japanese girls puking in each other's mouths, you can't exactly go back to Playboy.
Or to civilized society for that matter.
Vague comments (Score:2)
This article has some very vague commentary in it. For example - "brain volume". What are they measuring exactly? Total brain volume? Seems to imply that, but then later they talk about the size of an individual region of the brain.
Now, that's interesting because measuring the size of a brain region is quite tricky. For one thing, if a region seems to shrink, then you're mostly looking at activation patterns. It's not like you lose neurons - it's well known that the brain tends to swap and recruit neurons b
And Also (Score:2)
Control Group (Score:2)
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For this study to be accurate... (Score:2)
It would also need to denote how often said individuals had rewarding sex?
Perhaps these men looking at porn, are also having very little sex. And thus said region is smaler.
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Perhaps these men looking at porn, are also having very little sex. And thus said region is smaler.
I think most men have sex while watching porn. Granted, it's probably typically solo...
Selection bias. (Score:2)
The striatum is smaller in men who do not attempt to hide the fact that they consume.
So, is this really about instant gratification, or is this about the fact that you can use brain type to predict the results of a selection bias survey?
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the curvature of space bending in on itself.... like they say, once you go black....hole!!
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Which island? Australia?
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I'm not so sure. As I got older and had a kid, I don't really have the stomach for exploitation any more.
It's why I don't watch porn or college football like I used to. I can't really chalk it up to growth, because I'm still the same jerk I ever was, but I can't enjoy seeing people get used and hurt.
Having said that, if the Blackhawks lose game 7 tonight against the Kings, I may have to turn to pornhub to assuage my existential pain.
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I don't really have the stomach for exploitation any more.
Porn =/= exploitation. It's not hard to find non-exploitative porn.
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I don't know. If that's true, then that's good, but it's still complicated.
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The portion of the brain they are talking about is turned on by watching rom-com's.
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Indeed. In small enough samples, the power of the test (the probability of rejecting the wrong null hypothesis) can be ridiculously low. Having said that, you can't seriously make statements about how big the sample should be from the top of your hear. The power of the test as well as the consistency of hypothesis testing for a given sample size is dependent on the actual data generating process, which we normally can't observe.
The second best thing you can do is to _impose_ the assumption of the data gener