Abstract
Recent studies suggested that internet gaming disorder (IGD) was associated with impulsivity and structural abnormalities in brain gray matter (GM). However, no morphometric study has examined the association between GM and impulsivity in IGD individuals. In this study, 25 adolescents with IGD and 27 healthy controls (HCs) were recruited, and the relationship between Barratt impulsiveness scale-11 (BIS) score and gray matter volume (GMV) was investigated with the voxel-based morphometric (VBM) correlation analysis. Then, the intergroup differences in correlation between BIS score and GMV were tested across all GM voxels. Our results showed that the correlations between BIS score and GMV of the right dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (dmPFC), the bilateral insula and the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC), the right amygdala and the left fusiform gyrus decreased in the IGD group compared to the HCs. Region-of-interest (ROI) analysis revealed that GMV in all these clusters showed significant positive correlations with BIS score in the HCs, while no significant correlation was found in the IGD group. Our findings demonstrated that dysfunction of these brain areas involved in the behavior inhibition, attention and emotion regulation might contribute to impulse control problems in IGD adolescents.
Highlights
Internet addiction is a rapidly growing concern in the world and is associated with a variety of psychiatric disorders (Ko et al, 2012). Young (1998) defined Internet addiction, including internet gaming disorder (IGD), as an impulse control disorder
regions of interest (ROIs)-based correlation analysis showed significant positive correlations between gray matter volume (GMV) of all these clusters and Barratt impulsiveness scale-11 (BIS) score in the healthy controls (HCs), while no significant correlation was found in the IGD group (Table 3, Figure 1)
The correlation between GMV and impulsivity was investigated in adolescents with IGD
Summary
Internet addiction is a rapidly growing concern in the world and is associated with a variety of psychiatric disorders (Ko et al, 2012). Young (1998) defined Internet addiction, including internet gaming disorder (IGD), as an impulse control disorder. Young (1998) defined Internet addiction, including internet gaming disorder (IGD), as an impulse control disorder. Prior studies observed that subjects with internet addiction showed higher impulsivity compared to healthy controls (HCs; Cao et al, 2007; Lee et al, 2012). Impulsivity was noted to predict internet use disorder in the longitudinal studies (Billieux et al, 2011; Gentile et al, 2011). Adolescents with IGD often exhibit behavioral control difficulties during performing the executive or impulse control related tasks. Given that impulsive behavior may lead to serious impairments in psychological and social functions, such as suicide attempts and crime, it is necessary to investigate the neural substrates of the higher impulsivity in IGD adolescents
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