Heavy porn consumption may shrink your brain

Watching porn may not only lead to divorce but can also reduce your brain size.

German researchers have found less gray matter in brains of men who consumed sexually explicit material heavily.

"Our findings suggest that gray matter volume of the right caudate of the striatum (a subcortical part of the forebrain) is smaller with higher pornography use," said the study.

To analyse the impact of porn on brain, researchers questioned 64 men aged 21-45 about their porn-watching habits and scanned their brains with MRI technology.

"The results show that the brain region activated when people view sexual stimuli is less active in men who watch a lot of pornography," explained lead author Simone Kohn from the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin.

It is the first link between porn consumption and reductions in brain size and brain activity in response to sexual stimuli.

"It is not clear from the findings whether watching porn leads to brain changes or whether people born with certain brain types watch more porn," Kohn noted.

The study was published in the journal JAMA Psychiatry.