Online gaming addiction, as the most popular subtype of Internet addiction, had gained more and more attention from the whole world. However, the structural differences in cortical thickness of the brain between adolescents with online gaming addiction and healthy controls are not well unknown; neither was its association with the impaired cognitive control ability. High-resolution magnetic resonance imaging scans from late adolescence with online gaming addiction (n = 18) and age-, education- and gender-matched controls (n = 18) were acquired. The cortical thickness measurement method was employed to investigate alterations of cortical thickness in individuals with online gaming addiction. The color-word Stroop task was employed to investigate the functional implications of the cortical thickness abnormalities. Imaging data revealed increased cortical thickness in the left precentral cortex, precuneus, middle frontal cortex, inferior temporal and middle temporal cortices in late adolescence with online gaming addiction; meanwhile, the cortical thicknesses of the left lateral orbitofrontal cortex (OFC), insula, lingual gyrus, the right postcentral gyrus, entorhinal cortex and inferior parietal cortex were decreased. Correlation analysis demonstrated that the cortical thicknesses of the left precentral cortex, precuneus and lingual gyrus correlated with duration of online gaming addiction and the cortical thickness of the OFC correlated with the impaired task performance during the color-word Stroop task in adolescents with online gaming addiction. The findings in the current study suggested that the cortical thickness abnormalities of these regions may be implicated in the underlying pathophysiology of online gaming addiction.

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Regardless of whether it is conceptualized as a behavioral addiction or an impulse-control disorder, internet gaming disorder (IGD) has been speculated to be associated with impaired cognitive control. Efficient cognitive behavior involves the coordinated activity of large-scale brain networks, however, whether the interactions among these networks during resting state modulated cognitive control behavior in IGD adolescents remain unclear. Twenty-eight IGD adolescents and twenty-five age-, gender-, and education-matched healthy controls participated in our study. Stroop color-word task was conducted to evaluate the cognitive control deficits in IGD adolescents. Functional connectivity and Granger Causal Analysis were employed to investigate the functional and effective connections within and between the salience, central executive, and default mode networks. Meanwhile, diffusion tensor imaging was used to assess the structural integrity of abnormal network connections. The abnormal functional connectivity within central executive networks and effective connectivity within salience network in IGD adolescents were detected. Moreover, the inefficient interactions between these two brain networks were observed. In addition, we identified reduced fractional anisotropy in salience network, right central executive network tracts, and between-network (the anterior cingulate cortex-right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex tracts) pathways in IGD individuals. Notably, we observed a significant correlation between the effective and structural connection from salience network to central executive network and the number of errors during incongruent condition in Stroop task in both IGD and control subjects. Our results suggested that impaired cognitive control in IGD adolescents is likely to be mediated through the abnormal interactions and structural connection between intrinsic large-scale brain networks.

The majority of previous neuroimaging studies have demonstrated both structural and task-related functional abnormalities in adolescents with online gaming addiction (OGA). However, few functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies focused on the regional intensity of spontaneous fluctuations in blood oxygen level-dependent (BOLD) during the resting state and fewer studies investigated the relationship between the abnormal resting-state properties and the impaired cognitive control ability. In the present study, we employed the amplitude of low frequency fluctuation (ALFF) method to explore the local features of spontaneous brain activity in adolescents with OGA and healthy controls during resting-state. Eighteen adolescents with OGA and 18 age-, education- and gender-matched healthy volunteers participated in this study. Compared with healthy controls, adolescents with OGA showed a significant increase in ALFF values in the left medial orbitofrontal cortex (OFC), the left precuneus, the left supplementary motor area (SMA), the right parahippocampal gyrus (PHG) and the bilateral middle cingulate cortex (MCC). The abnormalities of these regions were also detected in previous addiction studies. More importantly, we found that ALFF values of the left medial OFC and left precuneus were positively correlated with the duration of OGA in adolescents with OGA. The ALFF values of the left medial OFC were also correlated with the color-word Stroop test performance. Our results suggested that the abnormal spontaneous neuronal activity of these regions may be implicated in the underlying pathophysiology of OGA.