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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Hum. Neurosci.
Sec. Brain Health and Clinical Neuroscience
Volume 19 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2025.1477914
This article is part of the Research Topic Neurobiological mechanisms of addiction: bridging Neuroscience and clinical implications View all articles
The impact of internet pornography addiction on brain function: a functional near-infrared spectroscopy study
Provisionally accepted- Chengdu Medical College, Chengdu, China
There is extensive awareness of internet pornography addiction. It not only affects the mental health of adolescents but also promotes criminal activity. However, the impact of internet pornography addiction on functional in the brain remains unclear. Therefore, sixteen healthy college students and five college students with severe internet pornography addiction were invited to participate in the experiment and watch a pornographic video. Functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) was used to measure the dynamic changes in haemoglobin in the brain during a 10-minute session of viewing internet pornography. Participants completed the Stroop Colour and Word Task (SCWT) before and after they had watched the video. Facial expressions and life signs were measured continuously during the experiment. Compared with the group that frequently viewed pornographic videos, the group with low-frequency pornography viewing exhibited enhanced functional connectivity in the inferior prefrontal cortex and pars triangularis of Broca's area in the frontal lobe, the primary somatosensory cortex in the parietal lobe, and the pre-motor and supplementary motor cortices. Moreover, the highfrequency pornography-viewing group exhibited hyperactive parasympathetic activity, more pronounced sexual arousal, and stronger functional connectivity in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and frontopolar area. After viewing the pornography, the high-frequency group demonstrated longer reaction times and significantly reduced accuracy while completing the Stroop Colour and Word Test (SCWT) compared to the low-frequency group and also their own performance before and after viewing the pornography. This study demonstrated the hyperactive and inhibited brain areas under the impact of pornography video addiction. The results may strengthen our understanding of neurobiology and facilitate the development of prevention policies for adolescents.
Keywords: Internet pornography, Addiction, functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS), brain function, cognition diastolic blood pressure, fNIRS: functional near-infrared spectroscopy, MNI: Montreal Neurological Institute, SBP: systolic blood pressure, SDNN: standard deviation of normal-to-normal interbeat intervals
Received: 08 Aug 2024; Accepted: 21 Mar 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Shu, Tang, Wu, Feng, 吕, Huang and Xu. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Min Huang, Chengdu Medical College, Chengdu, China
Fan Xu, Chengdu Medical College, Chengdu, China
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