Brain scans from nearly 200 adolescent boys provide evidence that the
brains of compulsive video game players are wired differently. Chronic
video game play is associated with hyperconnectivity between several
pairs of brain networks. Some of the changes are predicted to help game
players respond to new information. Other changes are associated with
distractibility and poor impulse control. The research, a collaboration
between the University of Utah School of Medicine, and Chung-Ang
University in South Korea, was published online in Addiction Biology on Dec. 22, 2015.
“Most of the differences we see could be considered beneficial.
However the good changes could be inseparable from problems that come
with them,” says senior author Jeffrey Anderson, M.D., Ph.D., associate
professor of neuroradiology at the University of Utah School of
Medicine.
Those with Internet gaming disorder are obsessed with video games,
often to the extent that they give up eating and sleeping to play. This
study reports that in adolescent boys with the disorder, certain brain
networks that process vision or hearing are more likely to have enhanced
coordination to the so-called salience network. The job of the salience
network is to focus attention on important events, poising that person
to take action. In a video game, the enhanced coordination could help a
gamer to react more quickly to the rush of an oncoming fighter. And in
life, to a ball darting in front of a car, or an unfamiliar voice in a
crowded room.
“Hyperconnectivity between these brain networks could lead to a more
robust ability to direct attention toward targets, and to recognize
novel information in the environment,” says Anderson. “The changes could
essentially help someone to think more efficiently.” One of the next
steps will be to directly determine whether the boys with these brain
differences do better on performance tests.
More troublesome is an increased coordination between two brain
regions, the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and temporoparietal
junction, a change also seen in patients with neuropsychiatric
conditions such as schizophrenia, Down’s syndrome, and autism, and in
people with poor impulse control. “Having these networks be too
connected may increase distractibility,” says Anderson. At this point
it’s not known whether persistent video gaming causes rewiring of the
brain, or whether people who are wired differently are drawn to video
games.
According to Doug Hyun Han, M.D., Ph.D., professor at Chung-Ang
University School of Medicine and adjunct associate professor at the
University of Utah School of Medicine, this research is the largest,
most comprehensive investigation to date of brain differences in
compulsive video game players. Study participants were from South Korea,
where video game playing is a popular social activity, much more than
in the United States. The Korean government supports his research with
the goal of finding ways to identify and treat addicts.
Researchers performed magnetic resonance imaging on 106 boys between the ages of 10 to 19 who were seeking treatment for Internet gaming disorder, a psychological condition listed in the Diagnostic
and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) as warranting further
research. The brain scans were compared to those from 80 boys without
the disorder, and analyzed for regions that were activated
simultaneously while participants were at rest, a measure of functional
connectivity.
The team analyzed activity in 25 pairs of brain regions, 300
combinations in all. Specifically, boys with Internet gaming disorder
had statistically significant, functional connections between the
following pairs of brain regions:
Auditory cortex (hearing) - motor cortex (movement)
Auditory cortex (hearing) - supplementary motor cortices (movement)
