Cognitive Science Research Group, Korea Brain Research Institute, Daegu, 41068, Republic of Korea.
Sci Rep. 2024 Nov 19;14(1):28679. doi: 10.1038/s41598-024-79951-6.
Globally, the age when children start using smartphones has decreased. Concurrently, the increased use of smartphones among children in developmental stages has caused serious effects, such as depression. While neuroimaging studies have predicted a significant overlap between the neurobiological changes caused by depression and smartphone overuse, few have simultaneously examined them. Therefore, we examined resting-state functional connectivity (FC) changes due to smartphone overuse and depressive symptoms in 69 children. We observed that FC in the salience network and regions involved in visual (e.g., the lateral occipital cortex) and motivational processing (e.g., the putamen) increased with smartphone overuse and depressive symptoms. Additionally, FC partially mediated the relationship between depressive symptoms and smartphone overuse, suggesting that changes in FC may be involved in the link between depressive symptoms and smartphone overuse. Our findings indicate that increased depressive symptoms could be associated with alterations in the salience network FC, which may influence visual attention or reward processing of salient stimuli, potentially contributing to smartphone overuse.
全球范围内，儿童开始使用智能手机的年龄呈下降趋势。与此同时，处于发展阶段的儿童过度使用智能手机已经造成了严重影响，例如抑郁。虽然神经影像学研究预测了由抑郁和智能手机过度使用引起的神经生物学变化之间的显著重叠，但很少有研究同时对它们进行研究。因此，我们研究了 69 名儿童因智能手机过度使用和抑郁症状导致的静息态功能连接（FC）变化。我们观察到，智能手机过度使用和抑郁症状与突显网络和涉及视觉（例如外侧枕叶皮层）和动机处理（例如壳核）的区域的功能连接增加有关。此外，FC 部分介导了抑郁症状和智能手机过度使用之间的关系，这表明 FC 的变化可能与抑郁症状和智能手机过度使用之间的联系有关。我们的研究结果表明，抑郁症状的增加可能与突显网络 FC 的变化有关，这可能影响到对显著刺激的视觉注意力或奖励处理，从而可能导致智能手机过度使用。
