Seok Ji-Woo, Sohn Jin-Hun
1 Department of Psychology, Chungnam National University, Daejeon,305-764, South Korea.
2 Department of Rehabilitation Counseling Psychology, Seoul Hanyoung University, Seoul,08274, South Korea.
J Behav Addict. 2020 Apr 1;9(1):71-82. doi: 10.1556/2006.2020.00003.
Individuals with problematic hypersexual behavior (PHB) are unable to control their sexual cravings, regardless of other situational factors. This inability to control cravings is a common trait in patients with neurological pathologies related to response inhibition. Until recently, however, it was unclear whether individuals with PHB have decreased inhibition and altered neural responses in the brain regions associated with inhibition compared to healthy control individuals, especially in the presence of distracting sexual stimuli. In this study, we examined the neural and psychological underpinnings of inhibition in individuals with PHB.
Thirty individuals with PHB and 30 healthy subjects underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging while performing a modified go/no-go task with neutral or sexual backgrounds used as distractors.
Individuals with PHB showed poorer response inhibition than healthy subjects, especially when sexual distractors were present. Further, compared to healthy control subjects, individuals with PHB showed decreased activation in the right inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) and reduced functional connectivity between the IFG and the pre-supplementary motor area (preSMA) when response inhibition was required. Finally, the reduced activation and connectivity were more pronounced in the presence of sexual distractors than in the presence of neutral distractors.
These findings suggest that individuals with PHB show reduced ability to inhibit responses that might be related to lower IFG activation and IFG-preSMA connectivity during response inhibition. Our results provide insights into the neurobiological underpinnings of poor response inhibition in individuals with PHB.
有问题的性行为亢进（PHB）个体无法控制其性冲动，无论其他情境因素如何。这种无法控制冲动的情况是与反应抑制相关的神经病理学患者的常见特征。然而，直到最近，尚不清楚与健康对照个体相比，PHB个体在与抑制相关的脑区中是否存在抑制能力下降和神经反应改变的情况，尤其是在存在干扰性性刺激的情况下。在本研究中，我们研究了PHB个体抑制的神经和心理基础。
30名PHB个体和30名健康受试者在执行一项经过修改的“停止信号任务”时接受功能磁共振成像检查，该任务以中性或性背景作为干扰物。
PHB个体表现出比健康受试者更差的反应抑制能力，尤其是在存在性干扰物时。此外，与健康对照受试者相比，PHB个体在需要反应抑制时，右侧额下回（IFG）的激活减少，且IFG与前补充运动区（preSMA）之间的功能连接减弱。最后，与存在中性干扰物相比，在存在性干扰物时，激活和连接的减少更为明显。
这些发现表明，PHB个体在反应抑制过程中表现出抑制反应的能力下降，这可能与较低的IFG激活和IFG-preSMA连接性有关。我们的结果为PHB个体反应抑制能力差的神经生物学基础提供了见解。
