1Department of Psychology, Beijing Key Laboratory of Learning and Cognition, Capital Normal University, Beijing, China.
2Center for Cognition and Brain Disorders, The Affiliated Hospital of Hangzhou Normal University, Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, China.
J Behav Addict. 2021 Feb 10;10(1):99-111. doi: 10.1556/2006.2021.00003.
Internet gaming disorder (IGD) has become a global health problem. The self-regulation model noted that a shift to reward system, whether due to overwhelming reward-seeking or impaired control, can lead to self-regulation failures, e.g., addiction. The present study focused on the reward processing of IGD, aiming to provide insights into the etiology of IGD. Reward processing includes three phases: reward anticipation, outcome monitoring and choice evaluation. However, it is not clear which phases of reward processing are different between individuals with IGD and healthy controls (HC).
To address this issue, the present study asked 27 individuals with IGD and 26 HC to complete a roulette task during a functional MRI scan.
Compared with HC, individuals with IGD preferred to take risks in pursuit of high rewards behaviorally and showed exaggerated brain activity in the striatum (nucleus accumbens and caudate) during the reward anticipation and outcome monitoring but not during the choice evaluation.
These results reveal that the oversensitivity of the reward system to potential and positive rewards in college students with IGD drives them to approach risky options more frequently although they are able to assess the risk values of options and the correctness of decisions properly as HC do.
These findings provide partial support for the application of the self-regulation model to the IGD population. Moreover, this study enriches this model from the perspective of three phases of reward processing and provides specific targets for future research regarding effective treatment of IGD.
网络成瘾障碍（IGD）已成为全球性健康问题。自我调节模型指出，奖励系统的转变，无论是由于强烈的寻求奖励还是控制受损，都可能导致自我调节失败，例如成瘾。本研究关注 IGD 的奖励处理，旨在深入了解 IGD 的病因。奖励处理包括三个阶段：奖励预期、结果监测和选择评估。然而，IGD 患者和健康对照者（HC）之间的奖励处理的哪些阶段存在差异尚不清楚。
为了解决这个问题，本研究要求 27 名 IGD 患者和 26 名 HC 在功能磁共振成像扫描期间完成轮盘赌任务。
与 HC 相比，IGD 个体在行为上更倾向于冒险以追求高奖励，并且在奖励预期和结果监测期间纹状体（伏隔核和尾状核）的大脑活动过度，但在选择评估期间则没有。
这些结果表明，IGD 大学生对潜在和积极奖励的奖励系统过度敏感，促使他们更频繁地接近风险选项，尽管他们能够像 HC 一样正确评估选项的风险值和决策的正确性。
这些发现为自我调节模型在 IGD 人群中的应用提供了部分支持。此外，这项研究从奖励处理的三个阶段的角度丰富了这一模型，并为未来研究提供了针对 IGD 有效治疗的具体目标。
