Abstract
As excessive use of internet gaming has become a serious public health concern, increasing studies have revealed that impulsivity is one of the important risk factors of internet gaming disorder (IGD). This study was designed to investigate the altered resting-state functional connectivity (FC) of the bilateral orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) in IGD participants and to examine its relationship with impulsivity compared with the normal controls (NC). Seed-based analyses verified that participants with IGD displayed decreased FC between the OFC and frontal, striatal, temporal and occipital regions different from NC. Moreover, IGD participants showed weankened FC from the OFC with dorsal anterior cingulate cortex as well as with dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and dorsal striatum as the results of group difference. These results could suggest that the decreased frontostriatal connectivity was associated with excessive internet gaming. Also, the increased FC in frontostriatal regions was correlated with impulse control in the NC but not the IGD participants. Further insight into the brain circuitry on frontostriatal could provide the target for developing treatment approaches of impulse control in IGD.
Highlights
According to recent functional magnetic resonance imaging studies, addiction is deeply associated with abnormal brain functional connectivity (FC) in cortico-striatal substrates, which leads people to be more impulsive[8,14,15,16]
We hypothesized that internet gaming disorder (IGD) participants would exhibit weakened FC from the bilateral orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) compared to the normal controls (NC), and we supposed that the altered FC, especially in the frontostriatal network components, would be related to impulsivity
We examined the alteration of the cortico-striatal networks of internet gaming users using resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI)
Summary
According to recent functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies, addiction is deeply associated with abnormal brain functional connectivity (FC) in cortico-striatal substrates, which leads people to be more impulsive[8,14,15,16]. IGD studies especially showed the association between frontal cortex among the frontostriatal regions and cognitive control which leads to impulsive control[21,22]. Neuro-circuitry changes in the prefrontal cortex, especially in the OFC, account for neural mechanisms of impaired decision-making and impulse control[23,24,25,26,27,28], maladapted decision-making[29,30] and deviant social behavior in compulsive gambling and drug addiction disorder[31,32,33]. We hypothesized that IGD participants would exhibit weakened FC from the bilateral OFC compared to the normal controls (NC), and we supposed that the altered FC, especially in the frontostriatal network components, would be related to impulsivity
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