Altered neural responses to missed chance contribute to the risk‐taking behaviour in individuals with Internet gaming disorder

Abstract

Missed chance is a powerful factor in shaping risk-taking behaviour. The abnormal risk-taking behaviour is an obvious feature of individuals with Internet gaming disorder (IGD). However, the relationship between the neural responses to missed chance and risk-taking behaviour in IGD individuals remains unclear. In the current fMRI study, 28 IGD subjects (12 female, 23.04 ± 2.43 years old) and 26 healthy control (HC) subjects (13 female, 23.58 ± 2.67 years old) participated in fMRI scanning during performance of a sequential risk-taking task. The general linear model and the psycho-physiological interaction analyses were conducted to explore the difference in neural responses between the two groups. The results showed that IGD subjects reported more regret for the large missed chance and took more risk than HC subjects. Moreover, compared with HC subjects, IGD subjects exhibited greater activations in brain regions like ventral striatum (VS) and superior frontal gyrus (SFG), and stronger VS-thalamus functional connectivity for the large missed chance. Additionally, among IGD subjects, the SFG activation for the large missed chance was positively correlated with the risk-taking behaviour.Together, the results revealed the altered neural responses to missed chance contributed to the risk-taking behaviour in IGD individuals. The findings could help to clearly understand why IGD individuals continue playing online games despite the risks of widely known and could provide a new perspective for the intervention of IGD.

Potential Biological Markers and Treatment Implications for Binge Eating Disorder and Behavioral Addictions

“…It was observed that the VS was more strongly activated in people who played League of Legends in response to gaming-related cues, and that the left frontal pole and DLPFC were more weakly activated compared to comparison subjects (who did not play League of Legends ). Stronger activations of the VS have been reported in individuals with (versus without) IGD in other studies [ 75 , 76 ], as well as less activation in the DLPFC and inferior parietal lobe during the evaluation of potential losses and the risk perception [ 76 ]. This increased activation of the VS in the face of addiction-related cues appears to be a shared factor between IGD, GD and SUDs [ 77 ].…”

Experimental Study on the Risk Preference Characteristics of Members in Supply Chain Emergencies

“…Buckert [23] and Kirchler et al [19] analyzed the relationship between subjects' risk preferences and risk decision-making with lottery tasks. Some scholars also studied the impact of time pressure on risk preference using the unpacking task of risk decision-making [28][29][30]. At present, there have been many studies about the impact of time pressure on decision-making, and most of them verified that time pressure reduced the quality of decision-making.…”

The role of emotional sensitivity to missed opportunity and grey matter volume of thalamus in risk‐taking behaviour

“…Missed opportunity not only affected decision behaviour but also induced the emotion of regret (Liu, Cheng, et al, 2020; Liu et al, 2017; Liu et al, 2021). Previous studies revealed that thalamus played a vital role in emotion processing (Ren et al, 2018; Tseng et al, 2015).…”

“…Finally, participants rated their emotional states for the decision outcome on the trial. Previous studies indicated that the average number of boxes opened in the Gain condition could be considered as an indicator of individuals' risk‐taking behaviour (Liu et al, 2020b; Liu et al, 2022a). Accordingly, we could divide participants into high and low risk‐takers based on this indicator.…”