How Pornography Affects the Brain
For most people, the decision to quit using pornography seems to begin with a gut feeling that something is off, rather than an informed decision based on research.
The issue of whether the use of pornography has any effect on mental health or brain development has unfortunately been largely overlooked in research, with the current amount of available reading material being underwhelming to say the least. However, there are a limited number of articles that can give us an idea of where the research seems to be headed, and leaves little room for interpretation regarding the destructive effects of frequent pornography usage.
The first study summarized here (Kühn & Gallinat, 2014) is an MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging)- study of whether frequent viewing of pornography affected the usage and function of a large brain network associated with a number of important functions, ranging from impulse control and future planning to registering sexual stimuli in an environment. The study took sixty-four male participants with no psychiatric, medical or neurological disorders, as well as being free of substance use.
The study found that the more pornography was used, the smaller the volume of grey brain matter was in an area of the brain called the striatum, which is strongly involved in decision making, emotional control, habit formation, and reward. Considering that grey brain matter gets its name and color from the high concentration of neurons, and is therefore absolutely critical to the function of the brain in every aspect, the results of this study gives us a strong indication that the use of pornography has a negative effect on several functions in everyday life.
Before we move on to the next summary, we need to address Dopamine, which has become a term loosely synonymous with ‘drive’ and confidence in many community-based forums discussing the adverse effects of pornography usage. The manner in which high dopamine “spikes” or “peaks” is often used to describe pathological behavioral patterns is misleading in several important ways if the general reward system is not understood well enough. Here is a brief presentation of 4 concise points, consisting of everything you need to know about dopamine and the reward system to understand the entirety of this article:
What dopamine is
Dopamine is a neurotransmittor, which means that it carries signal substances between brain areas to make sure that important information is conveyed. The information that dopamine carries allows physical movement, meaning that without dopamine in our brain, we cannot physically move (as seen in e.g Parkinson’s disease, where a deficiency of dopamine leads to trembles and impaired movement). Furthermore, dopamine is released in response to anticipation of a reward, meaning that dopamine is in some way the reward itself, given that we seem to enjoy even the feeling of anticipation.
Reward and disappointment
Our brains have a baseline of dopamine, where a level of dopamine flatly following the baseline reflects an experience of neither excitement or disappointment. When something exciting happens, dopamine is released and ‘spikes’ levels above the baseline, giving us the experience of excitement and anticipation.
What is important to note here is that even the anticipation of a reward is enough to release a certain amount of dopamine. The experience of disappointment occurs when anticipation of reward has occured, and has hence released a certain amount of dopamine already, but we find out that the reward is not going to arrive after all, leading our dopamine levels to plummet below baseline.
How the brain needs to punish us with boredom after excitement
Our brains do not want to sustain a constant level of excitement (for which the reason is debated), and wants to return to baseline sooner or later. To return to the baseline after an exciting experience with a high amount of dopamine, our dopamine levels are dropped below baseline (see graph below). If you don’t allow the dopamine levels to drop below- and return to the baseline, the general baseline of dopamine is lowered as a response to compensate for a continued surplus of dopamine that the brain does not want. This means that even after your dopamine returns to ‘baseline’, your dopamine levels are lower than before overall. If you never allow your brain to rest and return to baseline, and even keep stimulating intense dopamine responses, your baseline is going to decrease continually until you need even more intense experiences than before to feel neither excited nor disappointed. This process is called tolerance, and is a core component in all types of addictions.
Returning to a healthy baseline
If you refrain from stimulating intense dopamine releases and allow the brain to rest long enough to return to baseline, the baseline is eventually raised again. This is true for any activity, e.g switching from a diet consisting of highly processed foods to a healthier diet of whole foods, and realizing after a while that you actually really like eggplant and broccoli. Translating this theoretically, you could essentially engage in whichever type of intensely dopamine-releasing activity you like, given that you allow your brain an appropriate amount of rest to return to baseline and refrain from provoking it for long enough to not force a lowering of the baseline. The problem in addiction is that the brain doesn’t like being bored or disappointed, and seeks further excitement as soon as dopamine levels drop again.
Continuing with the research:
In a book discussing pornography in regards to neuroplasticity (how the brain adjust to changes and adapts by physically reforming), Norman Doidge (2007) explains internet pornography and the dopamine system in the following manner: When dopamine is continually released into the reward system through compulsive and chronic use of pornography, neuroplastic changes are made to build brain maps for sexual excitement to enhance that specific experience. Over time, as pornography use is continued and increased, these previously established brain maps cannot compare to newer and more reinforced pathways, leading the user to crave more intense and graphic pornography to maintain the level of excitement previously achieved by a lower intensity in sexual stimuli.
This tells us that as time passes and we continue to view pornography to release an intense and “unnatural” amount of dopamine, our brain has to adapt by downregulating our dopamine receptors (meaning that we absorb less dopamine, even if more is available). Whether this is done as a method to avoid overstimulation or to conserve resources better spent elsewhere is an entirely different question, and is less important in this context than the clear implication that pornography is a stimulus so intense for the human brain that frequent usage is a reliable method to decrease motivation and perception of reward in life overall.
Trying to make sense of the research around the effects of pornography on the brain’s function and form doesn’t require a comprehensive understanding of neurology and addiction. Although the research is insufficient to allow us to provide clear conclusions about the scope and severity of the adverse effects of pornography, it appears safe to make the assumption that the research is moving in the general direction of revealing that the use of pornography creates problems in decision making, emotional control, habit making, and the experience of reward and excitement in life.
References
Bamford, I. J., & Bamford, N. S. (2019). The Striatum's Role in Executing Rational and Irrational Economic Behaviors. The Neuroscientist : a review journal bringing neurobiology, neurology and psychiatry, 25(5), 475–490. https://doi.org/10.1177/1073858418824256
Doidge, N. (2007). The Brain That Changes Itself: Stories of Personal Triumph from the Frontiers of Brain Science. Penguin Books.
Kühn, S., & Gallinat, J. (2014). Brain Structure and Functional Connectivity Associated With Pornography Consumption. JAMA Psychiatry, 71(7), 827. https://doi.org/10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2014.93
Mercadante, A. A. (2022, July 25). Neuroanatomy, Gray Matter. StatPearls - NCBI Bookshelf. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK553239/
