The alteration of gray matter volume and cognitive control in adolescents with internet gaming disorder

Objective: Internet gaming disorder (IGD) has been investigated by many behavioral and neuroimaging studies, for it has became one of the main behavior disorders among adolescents. However, few studies focused on the relationship between alteration of gray matter volume (GMV) and cognitive control feature in IGD adolescents.

Methods: Twenty-eight participants with IAD and twenty-eight healthy age and gender matched controls participated in the study. Brain morphology of adolescents with IGD and healthy controls was investigated using an optimized voxel-based morphometry (VBM) technique. Cognitive control performances were measured by Stroop task, and correlation analysis was performed between brain structural change and behavioral performance in IGD group.

Results: The results showed that GMV of the bilateral anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), precuneus, supplementary motor area (SMA), superior parietal cortex, left dorsal lateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), left insula, and bilateral cerebellum decreased in the IGD participants compared with healthy controls. Moreover, GMV of the ACC was negatively correlated with the incongruent response errors of Stroop task in IGD group.

Conclusion: Our results suggest that the alteration of GMV is associated with the performance change of cognitive control in adolescents with IGD, which indicating substantial brain image effects induced by IGD.

Adolescence is a particular developmental period with rapid alterations in physical, psychological, and social development (Casey et al., 2008). As a big challenge in social adjustment and feelings of vulnerability associated with the relatively immature cognitive control performance, it may elicit a higher incidence of affective disorders and addiction among adolescents (Steinberg, 2005). Internet addiction (IA), as a new disorder, has been a public issue with fast developing of internet in recent years. Data from the China Youth Internet Association (announced on February 2, 2010) showed that the incidence of IA for Chinese urban youths is about 14% with the total number of 24 million (Yuan et al., 2011). IA consists of three subtypes: Internet gaming disorder (IGD), sexual preoccupations, and email/text messaging (Block, 2007). In China, the most important subtype of IA is IGD, and appendix of Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (5th Ed., DSM-5) also includes IGD, which emphasized that more research is needed to explore its clinical relevance and underlying neural mechanisms (Brand et al., 2014). The problem of IA drew much focus from education experts, psychologists and psychiatrists, so a lot of researches were performed on IA to investigate its brain mechanism and behavioral intervention (Ko et al., 2009, 2013a; Ding et al., 2013). However, currently the mechanism of IA is not clear and there is no standardized treatment for IGD available.