The Functional Features Of Brain In Internet Gaming Disorders

With the popularity of the Internet,playing games online has become the choice of entertainment for many people.However,more and more people are addicted to Internet games and cannot extricate themselves,thus causing serious negative effects on work,study,life and family.This phenomenon is called " Internet game disorder(IGD)".When exploring the features of IGD,more and more researches focus on the use of functional magnetic resonance imaging(fMRI)data to explore the brain’s functional features of IGD.In the past,most researches on IGD focused on single voxels or independent brain regions whereas internet gaming disorder is usually accompanied with multiple voxels,multiple brain regions,rather than single brain damage.Therefore,this study based on the method of Multi-Voxel Pattern Analysis(MVPA)and Dynamic Causal Modeling(DCM)method from the rest and task state functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging(fMRI)data to explore unique features of brain function revealing the reasons for the development of IGD individuals as addiction and its neural basis.Results and conclusions of the study were stated as below:Research one: Using the rest state fMRI data as eigenvalue to conduct MVPA,it can classify into the IGD and the recreational game user(RGU)group.In addition,the brain region with high weight were involved in the bilateral hippocampus gyrus(PG),right anterior cingulate cortex(ACC)and middle frontal gyrus(MFG).Moreover,the results of DCM showed that compared with RGU,IGD showed decreased effective connectivity from the left PG to the right MFG and from the right PG to the ACC with decreased selfconnection in the right PG.These results present that the weakening of the PG and its connection with brain regions such as ACC and MFG may be an important biomarker of IGD,and it may be an important reason for IGD subjects to maintain their addiction status when they are not exposed to games.Research two: Using fMRI data which is under cue response task as eigenvalue to conduct MVPA,it can classify into IGD group and RGU group.The brain region with high weight were involved in the left inferior temporal gurus(ITG),middle occipital gyrus(MOG),the right caudate nucleus(CN),the inferior occipital gyrus(IOG)and superior frontal gyrus(SFG).In addition,the results of DCM found that compared with the RGU,IGD showed reduced effective connectivity from the right CN to the left ITG、MOG、right IOG and SFG,with increased self-connection in the right CN.These results present when in the face of game stimulation,the neural circuits with weakened connections from CN to ITG,MOG and SFG may be an important physiological mechanism for further comprehending their uncontrollable involvement in games and ultimately develop into addicted individuals.In summary,MVPA method can distinguish IGD subjects and RGU,and find important brain regions to distinguish the two groups of subjects.The results of DCM indicate that the abnormal connection from CN to other brain regions may cause the IGD individuals to be unable to control their game behavior in the face of game stimulus.When IGD subjects was not playing gaming,the abnormality of the effective connection from the bilateral PG to other brain regions of the IGD subjects may play an important role in maintaining the addictive state.Therefore,the PG、CN and their effective connections to other brain regions play an important role in the maintenance and development of online game addiction,which is of great significance for understanding the physiological mechanism of IGD and for better diagnosis and treatment of IGD.