COMMENTS: Obese individuals have brain abnormalities in areas associated with taste, self control, and reward. Some of the changes include a reduction in gray matter in the frontal lobes (hypofrontality). It’s likely that overeating caused these changes, as later studies confirmed brains changes from overeating. If overstimulation by food causes brain changes, how is it possible that over-consumption of porn cannot?
Neuroimage. 2006 Jul 15;31(4):1419-25.
Pannacciulli N, Del Parigi A, Chen K, Le DS, Reiman EM, Tataranni PA.
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Read More… from Brain Abnormalities In Human Obesity A Voxel-Based Morphometric Study. (2006)
COMMENTS: Obese individuals have brain abnormalities in areas associated with taste, self control, and reward. Some of the changes include a reduction in gray matter in the frontal lobes (hypofrontality). It’s likely that overeating caused these changes, as later studies confirmed brains changes from overeating. If overstimulation by food causes brain changes, how is it possible that over-consumption of porn cannot?
Neuroimage. 2006 Jul 15;31(4):1419-25.
Pannacciulli N, Del Parigi A, Chen K, Le DS, Reiman EM, Tataranni PA.
[…]
Read More… from Brain Abnormalities In Human Obesity A Voxel-Based Morphometric Study. (2006)
A Massachusetts General Hospital study in next week’s Psychiatry Research: Neuroimaging shows marked brain changes over an eight-week practice of mindfulness meditation. Of course, by definition, every experience you have makes changes in your brain (that’s pretty much the definition of experience: “something that changes your brain”), but in this case, the changes point to […]
Read More… from Mindfulness Meditation and the Brain
Comments: Heavy porn users report many types of withdrawal symptoms after they stop using. They all experience cravings. Recovery is not linear in that some may relapse or have cravings weeks into recovery. This study may reveal why. After cocaine use stops, dopamine (D2) receptors have not returned to normal 45 days out, and D3 […]
Read More… from Dopamine receptor expression and distribution dynamically change in the rat nucleus accumbens after withdrawal from cocaine self administration. (2010)
COMMENTS: In this study college students played Internet video games for 6 straight weeks. Before and after measures were done. The ones with the highest cravings also had the most changes in their brains that indicate early addictions process. The control group, which played a less stimulating game, had no such brain changes.
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Read More… from Changes in Cue Induced Prefrontal Cortex Activity with Video Game Play. (2010)
Good study on novelty-seeking personality and dopamine auto-receptors. Auto-receptors help control the amount of dopamine released. Low levels of auto-receptors mean more dopamine is released for certain stimuli. High dopamine makes novel *anything* more exciting, or stimulating to the reward circuit.
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Read More… from Midbrain Dopamine Receptor Availability Is Inversely Associated with Novelty Seeking Traits in Humans (2008)
Comments: Another good overview of addiction, focusing on dopamine
Your brain on drugs’: Fishhooks of addiction Tuesday, July 15, 2008 By Gigi MarinoResearch/Penn State
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Read More… from (L) Your Brain on Drugs: Fishhooks of Addiction (2008)
Comments: Study describes how excessive dopamine can not only strengthen “go for it” circuits in addiction, but also weaken opposing “stop circuits.”
Unlocking the mystery of why dopamine freezes Parkinson’s patients
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Read More… from (L) Dopamine Reshapes Key Brain Circuits That Control Behavior (2008)
COMMENTS: This study, along with others demonstrate that novelty stimulates reward circuitry dopamine. The novelty of Internet porn is what makes it so different from porn of the past, such as magazines and DVD rentals.
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Read More… from Contextual Novelty Changes Reward Representations in the Striatum (2010)
We chose this study because it is one of the most recent. The take-away is that both novelty and fear-producing stimuli make for stronger memories and learning.