Valerie is a Professor of Neuropsychiatry and Neuromodulation at the University of Cambridge and a Distinguished Professor at Fudan University in Shanghai, China. Her theoretical research focuses on understanding human impulsivity–compulsivity constructs and their relationship to emotional and incentive processes. She focuses particularly on addictions and compulsivity. Her work aims to develop biomarker prediction with a highly translational arm in the development of novel neuromodulation techniques aiming towards intelligent personalized brain-computer interface designs. She was the past President of the British Neuropsychiatry Association and is a Fellow of the American Neuropsychiatric Association. She is the lead investigator responsible for more than £6 million in grant funding. Her research is highly impactful with over 250 publications and is in the top 5% of the most highly cited neuroscientists. She has numerous international invitations to speak and is active in media outreach.

Abstract

Compulsive pornography use as a behavioural addiction?

Compulsive pornography use can be associated with significant distress, dysfunction and comorbidity with increasing problematic use with increased availability of explicit pornography online. The behaviour has been recently recognized in the International Classification of Diseases 11 within the category of Compulsive Sexual Behaviour Disorder. This talk focuses on evidence from neuroimaging and cognitive neuroscience studies on compulsive pornography use supporting its conceptualization as a behavioural addiction.