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. 2024 Jun 1;45(8):e26711.
doi: 10.1002/hbm.26711.

Appetitive conditioning with pornographic stimuli elicits stronger activation in reward regions than monetary and gaming-related stimuli

Kseniya Krikova  1   2   3 , Sanja Klein  2   3 , Miriam Kampa  2   3 , Bertram Walter  2   3 , Rudolf Stark  2   3   4 , Tim Klucken  1
Affiliations

Appetitive conditioning with pornographic stimuli elicits stronger activation in reward regions than monetary and gaming-related stimuli

Kseniya Krikova et al. Hum Brain Mapp. .

Abstract

Appetitive conditioning plays an important role in the development and maintenance of pornography-use and gaming disorders. It is assumed that primary and secondary reinforcers are involved in these processes. Despite the common use of pornography and gaming in the general population appetitive conditioning processes in this context are still not well studied. This study aims to compare appetitive conditioning processes using primary (pornographic) and secondary (monetary and gaming-related) rewards as unconditioned stimuli (UCS) in the general population. Additionally, it investigates the conditioning processes with gaming-related stimuli as this type of UCS was not used in previous studies. Thirty-one subjects participated in a differential conditioning procedure in which four geometric symbols were paired with either pornographic, monetary, or gaming-related rewards or with nothing to become conditioned stimuli (CS + porn, CS + game, CS + money, and CS-) in an functional magnetic resonance imaging study. We observed elevated arousal and valence ratings as well as skin conductance responses for each CS+ condition compared to the CS-. On the neural level, we found activations during the presentation of the CS + porn in the bilateral nucleus accumbens, right medial orbitofrontal cortex, and the right ventral anterior cingulate cortex compared to the CS-, but no significant activations during CS + money and CS + game compared to the CS-. These results indicate that different processes emerge depending on whether primary and secondary rewards are presented separately or together in the same experimental paradigm. Additionally, monetary and gaming-related stimuli seem to have a lower appetitive value than pornographic rewards.

Keywords: anterior cingulate cortex; appetitive conditioning; fMRI; gaming; mOFC; nucleus accumbens; pornography; reward value.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

Figures

FIGURE 1
FIGURE 1
The design of the appetitive conditioning task. Each trial began with a white fixation cross (0–2.5 s), followed by one of four cues (CS + porn, CS + game, CS + money, or CS−) presented for 8 s and the presentation of a UCS (pornographic pictures, gaming pictures or money pictures) or a black screen (in the case of CS−) for 2.5 s. After the UCS had disappeared, the fixation cross was displayed again. The intertrial interval (ITI) was jittered between 8.5 and 11.5 s.
FIGURE 2
FIGURE 2
Analysis of valence ratings between CS type categories before and after the acquisition learning. The error bars represent the standard error of the mean (SEM). * indicates p < .05; ** indicates p < .01; *** indicates p < .001.
FIGURE 3
FIGURE 3
Analysis of arousal ratings between CS type categories before and after the acquisition learning. The error bars represent the SEM. * indicates p < .05; ** indicates p < .01; *** indicates p < .001.
FIGURE 4
FIGURE 4
SCRs (mS log‐transformed) during the acquisition for each type of CS in FIR (first interval response). The error bars represent the SEM (standard error of mean). * indicates p < .05; ** indicates p < .01.
FIGURE 5
FIGURE 5
Significant ROI activations during the presentation of CS + porn in comparison to CS−. Displayed t‐values are thresholded between t > 3 and t < 6.
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