Differential P3 reactivity to pornographic versus natural rewards as a neural marker of reward imbalance in problematic pornography use in young heterosexual men.

Problematic pornography use (PPU) has been increasingly recognized as a behavioral addiction involving aberrant reward processing. However, few studies have examined reward imbalance-the co-occurrence of heightened reactivity to pornographic cues and reduced responsiveness to natural rewards-as a putative mechanism underlying PPU. The present study investigated whether the differential P3 component (ΔP3; pornographic minus natural reward P3) could serve as a neural index of individual differences in PPU risk in a sample of young heterosexual men. A total of 139 participants (aged 18-25 years, M = 20.54, SD = 1.53) completed an ERP oddball task and questionnaires assessing both pornography use and PPU symptoms. Results showed that ΔP3 was positively associated with both pornography use and PPU severity and demonstrated moderate discriminative performance in distinguishing high- versus low-risk participants (AUC = 0.71). In contrast, pornographic reward P3 (PR-P3) and natural reward P3 (NR-P3) alone showed weak and non-significant associations with outcome measures. These findings suggest that reward dysregulation indexed by ΔP3 may reflect a neural signature of altered reward processing in PPU, providing preliminary support for reward imbalance models of addictive behaviors. More broadly, the results highlight the potential value of comparative neural indices over single-cue reactivity measures in characterizing individual differences in PPU.