Complexity-based analysis of the variations in the brain response of porn-addicted and healthy individuals under different function tasks

Abstract

The examination of brain responses in individuals with a pornography addiction compared to those without sheds light on the neurobiological aspects associated with this behavior. Neuroscientific studies utilizing techniques such as electroencephalography (EEG) have shown that porn-addicted individuals may exhibit alterations in neural pathways related to reward processing and impulse control. In this paper, we analyzed the variations in the brain response of porn-addicted versus healthy individuals under five function tasks including baseline, emotional state, memorize task, executive task, and recall task. For this purpose, we analyzed the complexity of EEG signals using fractal theory, approximate entropy (ApEn), and sample entropy. The results showed that the EEG signals of porn-addicted teenagers are more complex than the ones for healthy individuals, which reflects a higher level of brain activity for porn-addicted teenagers. This method of analysis can be extended to examine the brain activity of other types of addiction versus healthy brains.