1. Welcome to NoFap! We have disabled new forum accounts from being registered for the time being. In the meantime, you can join our weekly accountability groups.
    Dismiss Notice

Can anyone tell me the scientific evidence of what porn does to the brain?

Discussion in 'Porn Addiction' started by Kataboi, Jul 28, 2019.

Tags:
  1. Kataboi

    Kataboi Fapstronaut

    6
    2
    3
    I would like to know what porn does to your brain and what it turns you into scientifically speaking of course. From my experience it gave me anxiety and made me depressed, guilty and anxious. It gave me huge social phobia as well. But I would like to know why it does this to you and why does the government and other corparations allow this kind of crap if it's so detrimental to the human psychology. What's the endgame in the porn industry
     
  2. IGY

    IGY Fapstronaut
    NoFap Defender

    4,259
    26,265
    143
  3. Fenix Rising

    Fenix Rising Fapstronaut

    1,955
    3,835
    143
    Here's the best study I know of is MRI study done at Cambridge: Neural Correlates of Sexual Cue Reactivity in Individuals with and without Compulsive Sexual Behaviours​
    https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0102419

    Abstract
    Although compulsive sexual behaviour (CSB) has been conceptualized as a “behavioural” addiction and common or overlapping neural circuits may govern the processing of natural and drug rewards, little is known regarding the responses to sexually explicit materials in individuals with and without CSB. Here, the processing of cues of varying sexual content was assessed in individuals with and without CSB, focusing on neural regions identified in prior studies of drug-cue reactivity. 19 CSB subjects and 19 healthy volunteers were assessed using functional MRI comparing sexually explicit videos with non-sexual exciting videos. Ratings of sexual desire and liking were obtained. Relative to healthy volunteers, CSB subjects had greater desire but similar liking scores in response to the sexually explicit videos. Exposure to sexually explicit cues in CSB compared to non-CSB subjects was associated with activation of the dorsal anterior cingulate, ventral striatum and amygdala. Functional connectivity of the dorsal anterior cingulate-ventral striatum-amygdala network was associated with subjective sexual desire (but not liking) to a greater degree in CSB relative to non-CSB subjects. The dissociation between desire or wanting and liking is consistent with theories of incentive motivation underlying CSB as in drug addictions. Neural differences in the processing of sexual-cue reactivity were identified in CSB subjects in regions previously implicated in drug-cue reactivity studies. The greater engagement of corticostriatal limbic circuitry in CSB following exposure to sexual cues suggests neural mechanisms underlying CSB and potential biological targets for interventions.
     
    Last edited: Jul 28, 2019
    eye.wander and Master Chips like this.
  4. A study of the Max Planck institute in Germany has shown shrinkage of the brain's striatum (read: reward center) in porn addicts. The scientists could not conclude whether the porn was the cause and the shrinkage the effect or the other way around, but they added that it is more likely that the porn is indeed the cause of the shrinkage.
    Same goes for shrinkage of the brain's frontal lobes. The striatum is also close to or encompasses the parts of the brain that handle fear, stress, etc. so that would explain the depression and anxiety issues.

    This neuropsychiatrist says it all. Think only substance addictions are real addictions? Think again. It is absolutely astounding. You will never look at porn the same way after seeing this. I wish my 14-year-old self could see this!!!

     
    Last edited by a moderator: Jul 28, 2019
    DeepParkWater and Fenix Rising like this.
  5. SuperPowers

    SuperPowers Fapstronaut

    88
    83
    43
    Yes I'm interested in this also!

    Unfortunately I don't have the time to go to YBOP, there's so much on there but I probably dam well should!

    Anybody know anything just off their head?
     
  6. skaterdrew

    skaterdrew Fapstronaut

    1,712
    1,463
    143
    The real problem is the unlimited sexual novelty.

    Before high speed internet reports of sexual dysfunctions like ed were non existent in men under 40. Around 2006 the internet really took off and was high speed. 2006 was the year tube sites were released online. This meant you could get free unlimited high speed porn videos. This was the first time in human history you could get unlimited sexual novelty like this. It's not just porn sites though, even things like social media images that sexually turn you on are doing the same thing in the brain as the porn videos. This is why anything artificial that sexually turns you on should be classed as porn, because it is doing the exact same thing in the brain. 2006 was basically the first time in human history you could go on a device and keep clicking and searching and instantly getting and seeing unlimited things that sexually turn you on every second.

    The ed reports in men under 40 before 2006 were somewhere around 2%. In 2006 the ed reports in men under 40 jumped up to somewhere around 30%.

    Before 2006 men were still wanking to porn and not having anywhere near the same issues as after high speed internet. The reason is the novelty before 2006 was very low. The guys had one porn movie, magazine ext. The dopamine would rise motivating them to watch and wank to this porn, but then the dopamine wouldn't rise much more. Where as with high speed internet you can constantly keep searching and getting something new instantly and as much as you want. The novelty never ends. So every time you think about searching something that sexually turns you on dopamine is released, every time you find something that sexually turns you on dopamine is released, and every time you find something that sexually turns you on dopamine is released. What happens is on high speed internet guys have multiple tabs open flicking about loads of different content, constantly searching and seeing something new, edging, having hour long PMO sessions before they ejaculate, searching and flicking about hundreds of different content. Do you have any idea what this is doing to the dopamine in your brain? The dopamine will be sky high in your brain, the dopamine will actually be at an abnormally high level in the brain when you do this, higher levels that what the brain was designed to be able to handle. So when you do this enough times a real woman can't compete with this, because no real woman can raise this level of dopamine in the brain. So the brain basically finds the real woman boring because dopamine basically isn't releasing for them. Also note that it is dopamine that causes an erection. Also when you keep getting the unlimited sexual novelty like this your brain is getting too much dopamine, so what it does to combat this is it down regulates dopamine receptors, so you start to need more extreme and different types of porn to have the same effect, similar to an alcoholic who starts to need stronger types of alcohol and needs to drink more to reach the same effect. You also become desensitised to other things in life because not much dopamine is rising for them, but it will still rise for the PMO.

    Sorry I should of explained a bit more about dopamine. Dopamine is the motivational neurotransmitter, the get up and go neurotransmitter. It makes you get up and go get things. This could be many different things in life. But if your addicted to a super normal stimulus like PMO, alcohol, drugs, then a lot of the time your desensitised and the dopamine is mainly only rising for the addiction. So every day things in life become boring, but the addiction is still super exciting.

    Another thing about dopamine is it actually rises at it's highest right before sex, during sex it won't be as high as right before sex. This is because the dopamine is rising giving you a good erection highly motivating you to go get that, go have sex. But with high speed internet there is always something new to search and find, so you keep searching, searching and searching. Like I say this couldn't be done like this before high speed internet. This is exactly what has caused all the problems.
     
    Last edited: Jul 28, 2019
    eye.wander and grease like this.
  7. Fenix Rising

    Fenix Rising Fapstronaut

    1,955
    3,835
    143
    Here's my repost on the subject of Addict's brains gray matter reduction and timeline of it's recovery. I'd also like to add that 35.6 weeks is an average, but as you can see from graphs most extreme cocaine cases needed around 65-90 weeks (15-21 months) for the brains' gray matter volume to regrowth to the baseline value. Now the drugs are much worse because they raise brain's dopamine levels from around 350 to +1.000% (baseline = 100%), when the sex/orgasm rises it "only" to 200%. So porn addicts should probably fall inside 26.4–44.9 weeks recovery range. From my personal observation I can confirm that things do change after 6 months of abstinence. You don't have to fight with yourself to stay away from PMO anymore. You start regaining self control over P, probably because of gray matter regrowth in pre-frontal cortex.

    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]

    "I finally found some reliable science study how long does it take to regrowth your grey matter volume to base line or above after being addicted for long time.
    It takes 35.6 weeks of abstinence on average (range 26.4–44.9, sd 6.2). With 26.4 weeks in the best case scenario on 44.9 weeks in the worst cases.
    Study was done on alcohol, cocaine and heroin groups but according to authors almost the same brain's grey matter changes where observed with people who have compulsive behavior addictions (sex, porn, gambling, overeating disorders)
    So we have a timeline guys 250 days on average (185-314 days). We should be aiming for 314 just to be sure.
    The very, very good news is that the study shows that we can grow grey matter volume way above baseline (giving us even more self control than control group) if we continue with abstention past these dates.

    [​IMG]

    Weeks of abstinence.
    Table 2) were observed to show positive correlations with weeks of abstinence, that is grey matter volume in these regions increased with abstinence. These included left insula, left and right cingulate gyri, the left cuneus, left and right superior frontal gyri, left culmen of the cerebellum, and the right middle temporal gyrus. As can be seen in Figures 1 and 2, in each of these regions, those CD users with shorter periods of abstinence show less GM than controls. Those who were abstinent longer show greater GM volumes than controls. The cross-over point from relatively smaller to relatively greater volumes was quite consistent across all regions, averaging 35.6 weeks of abstinence (range 26.4–44.9, sd 6.2). Three regions (see Table 2) were observed to display negative correlations with length of abstinence. These included regions in bilateral cuneus and one in the left precuneus. In these regions, on average 24.2 weeks of abstinence (range 18.5–27.6, sd 5.0) passed before the level of GM equaled that of controls and then declined further with increased periods of abstinence.

    [​IMG]

    Here's URL to full study:
    https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0059645
    It makes you wonder where 90 days reboot timeline came from. Probably from habit forming timeline (66 day +-14 days) trials but applying habit breaking/forming timeline to addicted brain is complete bullshit."
     
    Last edited: Jul 28, 2019
  8. TimeToQuitNow

    TimeToQuitNow Fapstronaut

    I suggest you read Your Brain on Porn by Gary Wilson. It goes into detail about this and sites many sources
     
  9. Kataboi

    Kataboi Fapstronaut

    6
    2
    3
    Thank you and everyone for looking out it feels good to have people help you out like this.
     
    Fenix Rising likes this.
  10. DeepParkWater

    DeepParkWater Fapstronaut

    245
    173
    43
    Wish i could save this post and archive it
     
    Fenix Rising likes this.

Share This Page