Does watching porn affect your brain? Researchers make startling discovery

Watching porn has been linked to some behavioural changes, but new research suggests regular consumption of adult entertainment affects an important part of the brain. A researcher from Canada's Université Laval found a link between watching too much porn and poor decision making and compulsive behaviour among other things.

Rachel Anne Barr, a neuroscience PhD student and researcher at Université Laval, wrote in an article about her research for The Conversation, which talks in length about the impacts of watching porn. According to Barr, watching porn affects the prefrontal cortex of the brain, which is responsible for morality, willpower and impulse control.

The prefrontal cortex of the brain is not fully developed until adulthood. But watching too much porn could rewire our brain to a more juvenile state, which causes users to struggle with emotions and impulses. This leads to compulsive behaviour and poor decision making.

"In my own lab, we study the neural wiring that underlies learning and memory processes. The properties of video porn make it a particularly powerful trigger for plasticity, the brain's ability to change and adapt as a result of experience. Combined with the accessibility and anonymity of online porn consumption, we are more vulnerable than ever to its hyper-stimulating effects," Barr wrote.

Another study by the researchers at the Max Planck Institute in Berlin found higher porn consumption is linked with less brain activation in response to conventional pornographic imagery. As a result, users shift to more extreme and unconventional forms of porn, which PornHub analytics suggested being violence and incest.

Serious repercussions of watching porn

Several studies have been conducted to find links between porn consumption and its effects on people. Researchers have found watching too much porn can result in sexual dysfunction, where an individual won't be able to achieve erection or an orgasm with a real-life partner. Researchers have compared porn addiction to substance abuse as the brain responds to sexual stimulation with surges of dopamine.

"Pornography satisfies every one of the prerequisites for neuroplastic change. When pornographers boast that they are pushing the envelope by introducing new, harder themes, what they don't say is that they must, because their customers are building up a tolerance to the content," Psychiatrist Norman Doidge explained.

As mobile internet gets cheaper and entertainment consumption on mobile is the new norm, users can easily consume porn. It's startling to look at the statistics of porn sites. For instance, PornHub, the largest porn site, received more than 33.5 billion site visits in 2018 alone.

Barr's study is first of its kind to discover neurological repercussions of porn consumptions. But the researcher did not share details of how the research was conducted, the size of test group involved and comparisons with a control group.