Comments: Study compared computer gamers to non-gamers. Researchers found the gamers had reactions to pictures (cues) in a similar ways as drug users have to pictures (cues) of drug use. More evidence that their brains had changed.
[…]
Read More… from Specific cue reactivity on computer game related cues in excessive gamers (2007)
Comments: It’s technical but better written than most research articles. Tells the story of addiction as over-learning, which replaces our natural pleasures and desires. Learning and memory are the basis of neuroplasticity: changes in strength of nerve circuits.
Steven E. Hyman, M.D. Am J Psychiatry 162:1414-1422, August 2005
[…]
Read More… from Addiction: A Disease of Learning and Memory (2005)
Comments: Prairie voles can form pair bonds (social monogamy) as can humans. Only 3% of mammals can pair bond, which occurs in the reward circuitry of the brain. In this study it was found that the ability to pair bond makes animals more vulnerable to addiction. Addictions hijack the bonding mechanism, which runs on dopamine.
[…]
It’s a healthy way to up your dopamine when you’re feeling down. Many things produce beneficial levels of dopamine without the risk of creating a dependency, so saying music is “like a drug” is a bit over the top.
This guy said:
Just one thing I’d like to suggest. I chose a soundtrack for this moment of my life, and by the average age of this forum, many people will identify with this.
[…]
Comments: Norepinephrine (Noradrenaline) is released during shocking or anxiety producing events, such as shocking Internet porn scenes. Users may gravitate toward more shocking or disturbing (to them) material because it more strongly stimulates the reward circuitry.
Ventura R, Cabib S, Alcaro A, Orsini C, Puglisi-Allegra S.
[…]
YBOP COMMENTS: Important findings in this study are that neither time spent viewing porn on the Internet nor personality factors were associated the level of reported problems with Internet porn use (IAT sex score). Instead, it was intensity of the experience and amount of novelty (different applications opened) that mattered…suggesting that dopamine levels were at […]
Media-Newswire.com – Everyone knows the type. Maybe it’s you or someone close to you. We’re talking about the kind of people who act without thinking.
[…]
Read More… from Putting the brakes on impulsive behavior: D2 autorecptors (2010)
Important essay on the “Rat Park” experiments, in which researchers found out how important environment is to addiction. Our environment has drastically changed from from our hunter-gatherer days, which I believe makes us more vulnerable to porn addiction.
Rat Trap
[…]
Read More… from (L) The Rat Park, Addiction, and Environmental Factors – an essay (2007)
Will stopping porn solve my problems? Porn is actually a synthetic substitute for the daily pleasures that naturally gave your ancestors a sense of wellbeing—such as companionship. This means that stopping porn is not enough. You need to rediscover those natural sources of wellbeing. Unfortunately, one of the highest costs of addiction is that it […]
This is a great article about an actual patient with HOCD, but it skirts the issue of people who are using porn as a way to ease their anxiety. Users may have to stop orgasming to the porn to which they wish to desensitize themselves, or they’re giving their brains conflicting signals.
By Fred Penzel, Ph.D.
[…]
Read More… from Doctor Penzel Describes Desensitization Process for HOCD