High Libido or Hypersexuality? The Neuroscience Behind Porn Addiction, with Dr. Trish Leigh

For the average listener that's out there and they're like, okay, I've heard dopamine use so much, but I'm not really too sure what it specifically does and why we're even talking about this.

Can you just give a high level, like what function does dopamine play and why do you talk about it within reference to screen compulsions and porn usage?

Yeah, absolutely.

And thank you for that because dopamine is a buzzword, right? It's a term that's being thrown around on the internet and many times in a way that's not accurate.

So dopamine is a neurotransmitter.

It's a molecule that is produced in the nervous system, in the brain, in the reward center, and then is moved through the reward circuitry.

Many people think of it as the pleasure chemical, but it's actually the seek and search, the pursuit of pleasure.

pleasure chemical in the brain and that's really important from an evolutionary standpoint it's designed so that we humans go after the things that keep us alive like food like mating but algorithm amping as i call it amplification effect from the algorithm distorts these natural drives and it heightens the amount of dopamine that's produced in the brain by this distortion in the screen so pornography is a perfect example right sex is supposed to be one of the highest level rewarding activities in your real life with a real life partner now with pornography there's no real life partner it's self-referential basically and fantasy, but there's even higher levels of dopamine that are produced, which keeps that habit loop through the pursuit of higher level dopamine.

And that's really a very important distinction.

So dopamine is the sort of like molecule of, I think maybe it was Huberman, it was like the molecule of more, like the thing that drives you forward to seek and pursue those things.

How does dopamine and testosterone, how do they work together?

Yeah, so most men don't realize that testosterone production begins in the brain.

There's an axis in the brain that produces testosterone, and then basically it flows through the body.

It's generated, cascaded using electrical signals from the brain, which is where my work intersects.

But essentially, the cascading of the neurotransmitters and hormones have a very tight relationship.

So if the brain is performing in a different, I was going to say less than optimal, but I know it's a less than optimal for most people in a different way.

I've seen so many brain maps to know it is a level of dysfunction.

Scientific studies call it a dysfunction.

It changes the way that the testosterone then cascades.

And, you know, it's no wonder we have so many men on TRT.

Right.

Like most of the men I work with, they're on testosterone replacement and it makes them feel really good.

But what they don't understand is the depletion is happening from this this change in the brain performance pattern, which is changing the way that testosterone is produced and then ultimately cascades.

Yeah, I mean, it's interesting because it also creates like a dependency when you're on TRT, which is challenging because your body is disincentivized from producing it itself, which is always a wild thing.

Yeah,