Researchers from Cambridge University said viewing porn triggers brain activity in people with compulsive sexual disorder similar to the brain activity triggered by drugs in drug addicts.

Researchers looked at the brain activity of 19 male patients affected by compulsive sexual disorder and compared their brain scans with same number of healthy volunteers.

"The patients in our trial were all people who had substantial difficulties controlling their sexual behaviour and this was having significant consequences for them, affecting their lives and relationships", affirmed Dr. Valerie Voon from the department of psychiatry.

Dr. Voon said people affected with the compulsive sexual disorder started watching pornography at earlier ages and a lot in comparison to healthy volunteers. She stated that participants were similarities in their behavior with patients with drug addiction.

Researchers wanted to see if similarities exist in brain activity also or not. In the experiment, participants were shown short videos either having sexually explicit content or sports. While they were shown the series of videos, researchers were monitoring volunteers' brain activity using functional magnetic resonance imaging.

The ventral striatum, dorsal anterior cingulate and amygdala were the three main regions that were more active in the brains of people with compulsive sexual behavior in comparison to healthy volunteers.

These regions were active in drug addicts as well. But researchers said that it does not mean pornography is addictive. Researchers said still they do not know much about CSB to an extent to recognize it as an addiction in psychiatry.