Cue reactivity and its inhibition in pathological computer game players

Abstract

Despite a rising social relevance of pathological computer game playing, it remains unclear whether the neurobiological basis of this addiction-like behavioral disorder and substance-related addiction are comparable. In substance-related addiction, attentional bias and cue reactivity are often observed. We conducted a functional magnetic resonance study using a dot probe paradigm with short-presentation (attentional bias) and long-presentation (cue reactivity) trials in eight male pathological computer game players (PCGPs) and nine healthy controls (HCs). Computer game-related and neutral computer-generated pictures, as well as pictures from the International Affective Picture System with positive and neutral valence, served as stimuli. PCGPs showed an attentional bias toward both game-related and affective stimuli with positive valence. In contrast, HCs showed no attentional bias effect at all. PCGPs showed stronger brain responses in short-presentation trials compared with HCs in medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC) and anterior cingulate gyrus and in long-presentation trials in lingual gyrus. In an exploratory post hoc functional connectivity analyses, for long-presentation trials, connectivity strength was higher between right inferior frontal gyrus, which was associated with inhibition processing in previous studies, and cue reactivity-related regions (left orbitofrontal cortex and ventral striatum) in PCGPs. We observed behavioral and neural effects in PCGPs, which are comparable with those found in substance-related addiction. However, cue-related brain responses were depending on duration of cue presentation. Together with the connectivity result, these findings suggest that top-down inhibitory processes might suppress the cue reactivity-related neural activity in long-presentation trials.

Getting stuck with pornography? Overuse or neglect of cybersex cues in a multitasking situation is related to symptoms of cybersex addiction

“…In research on substance addictions it has been shown that presenting addicted individuals addiction-cues (e.g., a picture of an alcoholic beverage) elicits strong reactions of reward processing areas but reduces prefrontal control (Bechara, 2005; Goldstein et al, 2009; see also Brand et al, 2014). In line with this view, brain imaging studies on Internet addiction also found activations of reward processing areas (e.g., nucleus accumbens; Ko et al, 2009) and changes in prefrontal activations during the presentation of addiction-specific material (see e.g., Han et al, 2011; Han, Kim, Lee, Min & Renshaw, 2010; Lorenz et al, 2013). Such a mechanism may explain the results of the current study: In persons with higher scores on the s-IATsex, the pornographic pictures may have led to activation of the reward system but reduced control of prefrontal areas which would have been important for goal-adequate performance.…”

The stress-buffering effect of acute exercise: Evidence for HPA axis negative feedback

“…Thus, in the present study, higher cognitive effort may have been required in PLAC subjects to solve the arithmetic tasks and cope with increasing negative feedback. The IFG is mainly involved in inhibitory control (Aron et al, 2004;Lorenz et al, 2013), and IFG activation during stress has previously been found to differ between responders and nonresponders to the MIST (Dedovic et al, 2009a). Interestingly, the strong negative correlations between exercise-induced increases in positive affect and IFG/dlPFC activation indicate a modulating effect of previous mood induction by aerobic exercise.…”

Internet Gaming Disorder

“…Despite the varying designs of the aforementioned studies of gaming cue-induced reactivity, they all reported cueinduced reactivity over the parahippocampus, anterior cingulate, precuneus, and DLPFC [44,[46][47][48][49]. Their consistent results indicate that these areas participate in the brain's reaction and account for cue-induced gaming urges.…”