A new study by brain researchers at the University of California Los Angeles suggests that sex addiction is not a real disorder.

The study, published in the scientific journal Socioaffective Neuroscience and Psychology, examined the neural responses to pornography of 39 men and 13 women who reported having difficulty controlling their desires.

The study found that the neural responses were different to the way drug addicts' brains respond to images of drugs.

"Their brains did not respond to the images like other addicts to their drug of addiction," study author Dr Nicole Prause told Psychology Today.

"If our study is replicated, these findings would represent a major challenge to existing theories of sex 'addiction'."

Do you have any story leads, photos or videos?