Li Weiwei, Li Yadan, Yang Wenjing, Zhang Qinglin, Wei Dongtao, Li Wenfu, Hitchman Glenn, Qiu Jiang
Key Laboratory of Cogn ition and Personality (SWU), Ministry of Education, Chongqing 400715, PR China; School of Psychology, Southwest University, Chongqing 400715, PR China.
Key Laboratory of Cogn ition and Personality (SWU), Ministry of Education, Chongqing 400715, PR China; School of Psychology, Southwest University, Chongqing 400715, PR China.
Neuropsychologia. 2015 Apr;70:134-44. doi: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2015.02.019. Epub 2015 Feb 16.
Internet addiction (IA) incurs significant social and financial costs in the form of physical side-effects, academic and occupational impairment, and serious relationship problems. The majority of previous studies on Internet addiction disorders (IAD) have focused on structural and functional abnormalities, while few studies have simultaneously investigated the structural and functional brain alterations underlying individual differences in IA tendencies measured by questionnaires in a healthy sample. Here we combined structural (regional gray matter volume, rGMV) and functional (resting-state functional connectivity, rsFC) information to explore the neural mechanisms underlying IAT in a large sample of 260 healthy young adults. The results showed that IAT scores were significantly and positively correlated with rGMV in the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC, one key node of the cognitive control network, CCN), which might reflect reduced functioning of inhibitory control. More interestingly, decreased anticorrelations between the right DLPFC and the medial prefrontal cortex/rostral anterior cingulate cortex (mPFC/rACC, one key node of the default mode network, DMN) were associated with higher IAT scores, which might be associated with reduced efficiency of the CCN and DMN (e.g., diminished cognitive control and self-monitoring). Furthermore, the Stroop interference effect was positively associated with the volume of the DLPFC and with the IA scores, as well as with the connectivity between DLPFC and mPFC, which further indicated that rGMV variations in the DLPFC and decreased anticonnections between the DLPFC and mPFC may reflect addiction-related reduced inhibitory control and cognitive efficiency. These findings suggest the combination of structural and functional information can provide a valuable basis for further understanding of the mechanisms and pathogenesis of IA.
网络成瘾（IA）会以身体副作用、学业和职业受损以及严重的人际关系问题等形式带来巨大的社会和经济成本。以往关于网络成瘾障碍（IAD）的大多数研究都集中在结构和功能异常上，而很少有研究同时调查在健康样本中通过问卷调查测量的IA倾向个体差异背后的大脑结构和功能改变。在这里，我们结合了结构（区域灰质体积，rGMV）和功能（静息态功能连接，rsFC）信息，以探索260名健康年轻成年人的大样本中IAT背后的神经机制。结果表明，IAT分数与右侧背外侧前额叶皮层（DLPFC，认知控制网络CCN的一个关键节点）的rGMV显著正相关，这可能反映了抑制控制功能的降低。更有趣的是，右侧DLPFC与内侧前额叶皮层/喙前扣带回皮层（mPFC/rACC，默认模式网络DMN的一个关键节点）之间的反相关性降低与较高的IAT分数相关，这可能与CCN和DMN的效率降低有关（例如，认知控制和自我监测减弱）。此外，Stroop干扰效应与DLPFC的体积、IA分数以及DLPFC与mPFC之间的连接性呈正相关，这进一步表明DLPFC的rGMV变化以及DLPFC与mPFC之间的反连接减少可能反映了与成瘾相关的抑制控制和认知效率降低。这些发现表明，结构和功能信息的结合可以为进一步理解IA的机制和发病机制提供有价值的基础。
