Abstract
Internet gaming disorder (IGD) has been included in the 2013 Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) as a condition in need of further study, and gaming disorder was recognized by the World Health Organization as a mental disorder in the International Classification of Disease (ICD-11) of 2018. IGD has different characteristics in the two sexes and is more prevalent in males than females. However, even if the female gamer population is constantly growing, the majority of available studies analyzed only males, or the data were not analyzed by sex. To better elucidate sex differences in IGD, we selectively reviewed research publications that evaluated IGD separately for males and females collected in approximately one hundred publications over the past 20 years. The available data in this narrative review indicate that IGD is strongly dimorphic by sex for both its psychological features and the involvement of different brain areas. Impulsivity, low self-control, anxiety, emotion dysregulation, and depression are some of the psychological features associated with IGD that show a sex dimorphism. At the same time, IGD and its psychological alterations are strongly correlated to dimorphic functional characteristics in relevant brain areas, as evidenced by fMRI. More research is needed to better understand sex differences in IGD. Animal models could help to elucidate the neurological basis of this disorder.
Highlights
In the current highly digitalized world, gaming represents a recreational activity and a potential threat when a person loses touch with reality, substituting gaming for social, occupational, or other recreational activities [1]
Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5®® ); American Psychiatric Publishing: Arlington, VA, USA, 2013] and ICD-11 [6C51, Gaming disorder, ICD-11], gaming disorder (GD) is characterized by a pattern of repetitive or persistent gaming behavior, which has to continue over a period of at least
A recent study reported that depression is a risk factor for Internet gaming disorder (IGD), and that individuals who have become addicted to video games and experienced emotional abuse and/or abandonment as children have a high rate of depression [64]; the group of females was too small to evaluate the effects in terms of sexual differences
Summary
In the current highly digitalized world, gaming represents a recreational activity and a potential threat when a person loses touch with reality, substituting gaming for social, occupational, or other recreational activities [1]. Psychiatric Association (APA) included the internet gaming disorder (IGD) in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-5) [2]. Organization (WHO) identified gaming disorder (GD) as a public health problem [2], and, in 2019, recognized it as a medical disorder to be included in the official list of health risks [3]
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