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Core brain networks interactions and cognitive control in internet gaming disorder individuals in late adolescence/early adulthood

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Abstract

Regardless of whether it is conceptualized as a behavioral addiction or an impulse-control disorder, internet gaming disorder (IGD) has been speculated to be associated with impaired cognitive control. Efficient cognitive behavior involves the coordinated activity of large-scale brain networks, however, whether the interactions among these networks during resting state modulated cognitive control behavior in IGD adolescents remain unclear. Twenty-eight IGD adolescents and twenty-five age-, gender-, and education-matched healthy controls participated in our study. Stroop color-word task was conducted to evaluate the cognitive control deficits in IGD adolescents. Functional connectivity and Granger Causal Analysis were employed to investigate the functional and effective connections within and between the salience, central executive, and default mode networks. Meanwhile, diffusion tensor imaging was used to assess the structural integrity of abnormal network connections. The abnormal functional connectivity within central executive networks and effective connectivity within salience network in IGD adolescents were detected. Moreover, the inefficient interactions between these two brain networks were observed. In addition, we identified reduced fractional anisotropy in salience network, right central executive network tracts, and between-network (the anterior cingulate cortex-right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex tracts) pathways in IGD individuals. Notably, we observed a significant correlation between the effective and structural connection from salience network to central executive network and the number of errors during incongruent condition in Stroop task in both IGD and control subjects. Our results suggested that impaired cognitive control in IGD adolescents is likely to be mediated through the abnormal interactions and structural connection between intrinsic large-scale brain networks.

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Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Haifeng Luo, Changjian Hu, and Jun Liang for valuable technical assistance in conducting this research. This paper is supported by the Project for the National Key Basic Research and Development Program (973) under Grant Nos. 2014CB543203, 2011CB707700, 2012CB518501, the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant Nos. 81227901, 81271644, 81271546, 81101036, 81101108, 31200837, 81030027, 81301281, 81401488, 81401478, 81471737, 81471811, 81471738, 61401346, the Natural Science Basic Research Plan in Shaanxi Province of China under Grant No. 2014JQ4118, and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities, the Natural Science Foundation of Inner Mongolia under Grant No. 2012MS0908. General Financial Grant the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation under Grant No. 2014M552416.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Life Science and Technology, Xidian University, Xi’an, 710071, Shaanxi, People’s Republic of China

    Kai Yuan, Wei Qin, Yanzhi Bi, Lihong Xing & Jie Tian

  2. Engineering Research Center of Molecular and Neuro Imaging Ministry of Education, Xi’an, People’s Republic of China

    Kai Yuan, Wei Qin, Yanzhi Bi, Lihong Xing & Jie Tian

  3. Information Processing Laboratory, School of Information Engineering, Inner Mongolia University of Science and Technology, Baotou, 014010, Inner Mongolia, People’s Republic of China

    Dahua Yu

  4. Department of Medical Imaging, the First Affiliated Hospital of Medical College, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an, Shaanxi, 710061, People’s Republic of China

    Chenwang Jin

  5. Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100190, People’s Republic of China

    Jie Tian

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  1. Kai Yuan
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  3. Dahua Yu
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Correspondence to Wei Qin.

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K. Yuan, W. Qin and D. Yu contributed equally to this article.

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Yuan, K., Qin, W., Yu, D. et al. Core brain networks interactions and cognitive control in internet gaming disorder individuals in late adolescence/early adulthood. Brain Struct Funct 221, 1427–1442 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00429-014-0982-7

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