TOO MUCH PORN COULD MEAN LESS GREY MATTERS FOR MEN

Researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin say they found less gray matter in the brains of men who watch large amounts of porn. The study was published in the journal JAMA Psychiatry Wednesday and could cause some concern for men.
However, the research apparently could not determine conclusively that watching and looking at pornography did actually cause the brain to shrink.
The authors of the study stated that further studies "should investigate the effects of pornography longitudinally or expose naive participants to pornography and investigate the causal effects over time."
The research was carried out by recruiting 64 healthy male subjects between the ages of 21 and 45, apparently "with a broad range of pornography consumption."
The men were not initially informed that the research was monitoring the effects of porn on their brains. They were told it was "a scientific study including magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) measurements."
Later on during a phone interview, the men were told that questions about pornography would be included as part of the research. This didn't cause anyone to object or drop out of the study.
The participants then completed surveys, explaining how much porn they watched on average, and their responses averaged just over four hours per week.
All the while scanning their brains using MRI technology, researchers then showed the men sexually explicit images from pornographic websites, alternated with non-sexual images of people performing exercise.
According to the findings, the gray-matter volume of the "right caudate of the striatum is smaller with higher pornography use." When the porn was shown, the MRIs showed diminished function in a part of the brain that processes motivation.
The study did not confirm whether men with smaller striatums needed more porn, or that porn actually makes the brain smaller.
The authors say it showed that "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 more porn watching," concluding that more study is needed.
The research was carried out by Simone Kühn along with her colleague, Jurgen Gallinat from Charite University, also in Berlin.
Kühn did admit that other behaviors, such as driving a taxi, are also linked to changes to brain size and functioning. “Basically everything that people do very frequently can shape their brain structure and function,” she said.