An event-related potential investigation of deficient inhibitory control in individuals with internet addiction disorder

Abstract

Objective To investigate deficient inhibitory control in individuals with IAD using a visual go/no-go task by ERPs. Methods 26 individuals met YDQ criteria for IAD were enrolled as research group and marched sexual and age 26 healthy person enrolled as control group. BIS-11 was used for measures of impulsivity.A go/no-go task involved eight different two-digit numerical stimuli. The response window was 1000 ms and the ITIwas 1500 ms. EEG was recorded during participants performed the task. BESA 5.2.0 was used to perform data analysis and the no-go N2 amplitude was analyzed for investigation of inhibitory control. Results BIS-11 total scores, attentional key scores and motor key in IAD group were higher than that of control group. In the go/no-go task, false alarm rate of IAD group was higher and hit rate was lower than that of control group. A repeated measure ANOVA revealed a significant group, frontal electrode sites and group × frontal electrode sites main effect for N2amplitudes of no-go conditions ( for group: F= 3953, df= 1, P= 0.000;for frontal electrode sites: F= 541, df= 9, P= 0.000;for group × frontal electrode sites: F = 306, df = 9, P = 0. 000 ), and a significant group, central electrode sites and group × central electrode sites main effect for N2 amplitudes of no-go conditions ( for group: F=9074, df= 1, P = 0. 000;for central electrode sites: F = 163, df= 2, P = 0.000;for group × central electrode sites: F = 73, df= 2, P = 0.000). N2 amplitudes of no-go conditions were lower than those at control group. Conclusions Individuals with IAD were more impulsive than controls and shared neuropsychological and ERPs characteristics of compulsive-impulsive spectrum disorder, which supports that IAD is an impulse disorder or at leastrelated to impulse control disorder. Key words: A go/no-go task; Impulsivity; Event-related potentials; Internrnet addiction disorder