Park Chang-Hyun, Chun Ji-Won, Cho Huyn, Jung Young-Chul, Choi Jihye, Kim Dai Jin
Department of Neurology, Ewha Medical Research Institute, Ewha Womans University School of Medicine, Seoul, Korea.
Department of Psychiatry, Seoul St. Mary's Hospital, The Catholic University of Korea School of Medicine, Seoul, Korea.
Addict Biol. 2017 Jan;22(1):196-205. doi: 10.1111/adb.12282. Epub 2015 Jul 1.
Internet gaming addiction (IGA) is becoming a common and widespread mental health concern. Although IGA induces a variety of negative psychosocial consequences, it is yet ambiguous whether the brain addicted to Internet gaming is considered to be in a pathological state. We investigated IGA-induced abnormalities of the brain specifically from the network perspective and qualitatively assessed whether the Internet gaming-addicted brain is in a state similar to the pathological brain. Topological properties of brain functional networks were examined by applying a graph-theoretical approach to analyzing functional magnetic resonance imaging data acquired during a resting state in 19 IGA adolescents and 20 age-matched healthy controls. We compared functional distance-based measures, global and local efficiency of resting state brain functional networks between the two groups to assess how the IGA subjects' brain was topologically altered from the controls' brain. The IGA subjects had severer impulsiveness and their brain functional networks showed higher global efficiency and lower local efficiency relative to the controls. These topological differences suggest that IGA induced brain functional networks to shift toward the random topological architecture, as exhibited in other pathological states. Furthermore, for the IGA subjects, the topological alterations were specifically attributable to interregional connections incident on the frontal region, and the degree of impulsiveness was associated with the topological alterations over the frontolimbic connections. The current findings lend support to the proposition that the Internet gaming-addicted brain could be in the state similar to pathological states in terms of topological characteristics of brain functional networks.
网络成瘾（IGA）正成为一个普遍且广泛存在的心理健康问题。尽管IGA会引发各种负面的心理社会后果，但沉迷于网络游戏的大脑是否被视为处于病理状态仍不明确。我们专门从网络角度研究了IGA引发的大脑异常，并定性评估了沉迷于网络游戏的大脑是否处于与病理大脑相似的状态。通过应用图论方法分析19名IGA青少年和20名年龄匹配的健康对照在静息状态下获取的功能磁共振成像数据，研究了大脑功能网络的拓扑特性。我们比较了两组之间基于功能距离的测量指标、静息状态大脑功能网络的全局和局部效率，以评估IGA受试者的大脑在拓扑结构上与对照组大脑相比有何改变。与对照组相比，IGA受试者有更严重的冲动性，其大脑功能网络表现出更高的全局效率和更低的局部效率。这些拓扑差异表明，IGA导致大脑功能网络向随机拓扑结构转变，这与其他病理状态中表现出的情况相同。此外，对于IGA受试者，拓扑改变具体归因于额叶区域的区域间连接，并且冲动程度与额边缘连接上的拓扑改变相关。目前的研究结果支持了这样一种观点，即就大脑功能网络的拓扑特征而言，沉迷于网络游戏的大脑可能处于与病理状态相似的状态。
