By Peter Berton

COLLEGE PARK, Md. – Four recent, unrelated scientific studies provided good news and bad news for the adult entertainment industry: Having sex may increase an individual’s intellectual abilities, but watching porn, sadly, may have the opposite effect.

Researchers at the University of Maryland focused on middle-aged rats. Versus celibate rats, those who were allowed to have sex showed improved mental performance and a higher level of new brain cell growth.

Similar results were reported by researchers at Konkuk University in Seoul, South Korea. Scientists there allowed chronically-stressed mice to ease their angst with nookie.

“Sexual interaction could be helpful for buffering adult hippocampal neurogenesis and recognition memory function against the suppressive actions of chronic stress,” the resulting report noted.

As for porn? In a report published in the Journal of Sex Research, psychologists at the University of Duisburg-Essen in Germany concluded that looking at porn interferes with people’s “working memory” — the ability to stay focused while performing multiple tasks.

The German researchers tested the working memory of 28 healthy individuals by asking them to keep track of “neutral, negative, positive or pornographic stimuli.”

“Results revealed worse working memory performance in the pornographic picture condition,” said Matthias Brand, head of the university’s cognitive psychology department.

But can too much porn make a person stupid? Neuroscientists at the University of Texas recently said yes. Overuse of porn, like overuse of any other substance (i.e., addiction), may cause an individual’s brain to suffer permanent “anatomical and pathological” changes, they claim to have determined.

A research team at the University of California, Los Angeles, was quick to take aim at the Texas scientists’ claims.

The Texas researchers “offered little, if any, convincing evidence to support their perspectives,” the Californians insisted. “Instead, excessive liberties and misleading interpretations of neuroscience research are used to assert that excessive pornography consumption causes brain damage.”

With luck, the cross-border sniping will lead to further research, since — judging by reports emerging from the scientific community for the past three years — the lab-coated set harbors more than a few unrepentant voyeurs.