Experts Talk About the Effects of Porn on the Brain

There’s the effects porn has on our hearts. There’s the effects porn has on our relationships. And there’s the effects porn has on our brains. The subject of this article is that third element. I’ve transcribed a short compilation in which neurological experts talk about the harmful effects of porn on the brain. Porn feeds a vicious cycle of needing increasingly novel and nuanced imagery to get the same stimulating effect. It reduces gray matter in the rewards region in the brain, which makes positive emotion harder to come by. Take care before consuming.

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Speakers:

Dr. Simone Kuhn: Neuroscientist/Psychologist, Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Berlin.

Dr. Don Hilton Jr.: Neuroscientist., American Board of Neurological Surgeons.

Dr. Philip Zimbardo: Psychologist/Professor, Standford University.

Transcript:

The brain is a fascinating machine really. . .

In terms of brain plasticity, everything that we do each and every day shapes our brain. . .

We call it neuroplastic. Just as plastic, it’s changeable and malleable. . .

And I actually did a study recently on this. We put people in the scanner and we looked at their brain structure and associated this brain structure with the amount of pornography they consumed. Basically, we found in our study that the gray matter in the reward center is generally smaller in those people who watch more porn. . .

We’ve seen that with multiple addictions for methamphetamine to cocaine, others. And now with pornography addiction. It’s almost as if the brain is saying I like pleasure, but you’re killing me. This is too much. . .

My hypothesis was that the ventrial striatum in the rewards region should be bigger in those people watching pornography, and it’s exactly the other way around. “Were you shocked?” Yes. . .

There is solid research to show that brain functioning changes the more you watch pornography. You get a blip up when the pornography is totally new, but totally new soon becomes old as you watch that. . .

People need to watch more, get more interesting and novel stuff to get the same level of activity in the rewards system. . .

It’s a paradox. When it starts out, the porn is turning you on, and the more porn you watched, the less likely you are to get aroused. . .

Which seemed to indicate that the normal, regular thing you are used to isn’t sufficient any more. . .

The wonderful thing about the human mind is the power of curiosity to invent, to create, but what pornography does is it puts a strait jacket on our minds–“No, this is the only thing I’m interested in.” And, ultimately, any kind of compulsion is destructive.