A research study published last week in the peer-reviewed Journal of the American Medical Association: Psychiatry concludes that the more porn a person watches, the less gray matter, activity and connectivity they have in their brain.
“This is the real deal,” said Dr. Donald Hilton, a neurosurgeon and clinical associate professor in the Department of Neurosurgery at the University of Texas Health Sciences Center. “It is a correlative study, so as a stand alone study it cannot support causation. However, it can be consistent with causation if interpreted in light of other (longitudinal) studies showing that the brain changes with learning and that learning causes the change.
“Bottom line: This study shows that heavy porn users have structural brain shrinkage. Whether they were born with the shrinkage and therefore doomed to their fate, or whether they shrink the more they watch, neither is good. It’s like saying you have a brain tumor and worrying about whether you were born with it or whether you are doing something to cause it. Both are bad,” explained Hilton.
This is another definitive finding that pornography harms, proving that porn use is a public health crisis that must be addressed. Many studies, including Dr. Valerie Voon’s work last fall, have found that porn use significantly effects how the brain functions, changing how a user acts and reacts in the real world, away from their computer.
A recent Gallup poll reports that pornography is still largely unacceptable in our nation. 67% of Americans responded that they do not approve of pornography use. Clearly, individuals can sense that pornography is damaging to our society on a fundamental basis. Now, there is further proof.
