Disrupted Brain Functional Network in Internet Addiction Disorder: A Resting-State Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Study

Abstract

Internet addiction disorder (IAD) is increasingly recognized as a mental health disorder, particularly among adolescents. The pathogenesis associated with IAD, however, remains unclear. In this study, we aim to explore the encephalic functional characteristics of IAD adolescents at rest using functional magnetic resonance imaging data. We adopted a graph-theoretic approach to investigate possible disruptions of functional connectivity in terms of network properties including small-worldness, efficiency, and nodal centrality on 17 adolescents with IAD and 16 socio-demographically matched healthy controls. False discovery rate-corrected parametric tests were performed to evaluate the statistical significance of group-level network topological differences. In addition, a correlation analysis was performed to assess the relationships between functional connectivity and clinical measures in the IAD group. Our results demonstrate that there is significant disruption in the functional connectome of IAD patients, particularly between regions located in the frontal, occipital, and parietal lobes. The affected connections are long-range and inter-hemispheric connections. Although significant alterations are observed for regional nodal metrics, there is no difference in global network topology between IAD and healthy groups. In addition, correlation analysis demonstrates that the observed regional abnormalities are correlated with the IAD severity and behavioral clinical assessments. Our findings, which are relatively consistent between anatomically and functionally defined atlases, suggest that IAD causes disruptions of functional connectivity and, importantly, that such disruptions might link to behavioral impairments.

Random topology organization and decreased visual processing of internet addiction: Evidence from a minimum spanning tree analysis

“…Collectively, the altered brain regions related to IA are often widely distributed, and the conclusions of brain connectivity have been inconsistent or even contradictory. For instance, some studies found that adolescents with IA exhibited increased coherence compared to HC participants regardless of psychological features (e.g., depression, anxiety, and impulsivity) (Kwan & Choi, ; Park et al, ), while others found that IA appears to result from reduced connectivity (Hong, Zalesky et al, ; Wee et al, ). One of the aims of this study was to explore the characteristics of brain connectivity in IA.…”

Decreased functional connectivity in an executive control network is related to impaired executive function in Internet gaming disorder

“…Studies on the functional connectivity in IAD subjects have already revealed some abnormal features. Hong et al, found a widespread and decrease of functional connectivity in the cortico-subcortical circuit (∼24% with prefrontal and ∼27% with parietal cortex) in 12 adolescents who were diagnosed with IAD (Hong et al, 2013); Li et al, found ineffective connectivity in the frontal-basal ganglia pathway in IAD adolescents, which was thought engaged in response inhibition (Li et al, 2014); Wee et al, found significant disruption in the functional connectome between regions located in the frontal, occipital, and parietal lobes in IAD subjects (Wee et al, 2014). Despite findings indicating FC across cortical regions, little is known about the psychological significance of these relationships, especially in clinical diagnoses like IGD.…”

Behavioral addictions in addiction medicine

“…These brain networks have been implicated in substance addictions and may contribute to the development and maintenance of addictive behaviors. Altered connectivity between regions of the default-mode network has also been observed among individuals with PIU, and degree of connectivity was related to PIU severity (Wee et al, 2014). …”