Abstract
Internet gaming disorder (IGD) has been conceptualized as a behavioral addiction and shares clinical, neuropsychological, and personality characteristics with alcohol use disorder (AUD), but IGD dose not entail brain exposure to toxic agents, which renders it different from AUD. To achieve a clear understanding of the neurobiological features of IGD, we aimed to identify morphological and functional changes in IGD and compare them with those in AUD. Individuals with IGD showed larger volume in the hippocampus/amygdala and precuneus than healthy controls (HCs). The volume in the hippocampus positively correlated with the symptom severity of IGD. Moreover, functional connectivity analysis with the hippocampus/amygdala cluster revealed that the left ventromedial prefrontal cortex showed stronger functional connectivity in individuals with IGD compared to those with AUD. In contrast, individuals with AUD exhibited the smaller cerebellar volume and thinner medial frontal cortex than HCs. The volume in the cerebellum correlated with impaired working memory function as well as duration of illness in AUD group. Findings suggested that altered volume and functional connectivity in the hippocampus/amygdala in IGD might be associated with abnormally enhanced memory process of gaming-related cues, while abnormal cortical changes and cognitive impairments in AUD might be associated with neurotoxic effects of alcohol.
Highlights
Internet gaming disorder (IGD) is defined as the excessive or uncontrolled Internet gaming activity, leading to negative consequences in the psychosocial function[1]
No significant differences were found between the IGD and the alcohol use disorder (AUD) groups with respect to Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI), and Barratt Impulsiveness Scale-11 (BIS-11) scores and duration of illness
We identified individuals with IGD had lager volume in the bilateral hippocampus/amygdala and right precuneus than healthy controls (HCs)
Summary
Internet gaming disorder (IGD) is defined as the excessive or uncontrolled Internet gaming activity, leading to negative consequences in the psychosocial function[1]. AUD, a representative type of SUD, shares features related to emotion, temperament, and personality[17] as well as aforementioned behavior symptoms with IGD Both IGD and AUD groups showed increased regional homogeneity in the posterior cingulate cortex[18], and positive functional connectivity in the cingulate gyrus and cerebellum, and negative functional connectivity in the orbitofrontal cortex on the DLPFC-seeded functional connectivity analysis[19]. Recent studies with psychiatric disorders identified alterations of resting-state functional connectivity using altered gray matter volume as the seed ROI, which provided more comprehensive understanding of the underlying neural circuitry of disorders than when only morphological changes investigated[21, 22] We hypothesized that both IGD and AUD individuals would show cortical abnormalities associated with executive control, such as the prefrontal areas and IGD would show cortical abnormalities associated with processing and learning of gaming-related information, such as the motor and visual area, and the hippocampus
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