NEURAL CORRELATES OF EMOTIONAL DYSREGULATION IN ADOLESCENTS WITH GAMING DISORDER - A LONGITUDINAL FMRI STUDY

ABSTRACT

Background: The addictive use of digital games is a rising phenomenon, especially in adolescents and under the COVID-19 pandemic (Paschke et al., 2021). A better understanding of the new International Classification of Diseases, 11th Revision (ICD-11) diagnosis gaming disorder (GD) is urgently needed. Imaging studies report alterations in cognitive control, affective and motor regions in affected adolescents (Schettler et al., 2022). At the same time, they show deficits in self-rated emotion regulation. Objectives: The study aimed to investigate the neural correlates of emotional dysregulation in adolescents with GD and neural alterations under therapy at the very first time. Methods: In a functional magnetic resonance imaging study, 20 inpatients and outpatients with GD and 20 healthy peers were examined (aged 12-18 years) at two measurement points with a 12-week interval. Within the interval, patients received therapy as described by Wendt et al. (2021). The cognitive-reappraisal paradigm of Ochsner et al. (2004) was applied to measure emotion regulation abilities. Findings: First interim analyses revealed a positive linear relationship between the severity of initial addiction symptoms and activity changes within the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex - a brain region related to top-down emotion regulation. This relationship decreased over the 12 weeks but only in the patients group. Conclusion: Adolescents with GD seem to show higher cognitive-control effort when dealing with negative emotions which could be addressed by therapy. Data collection will be completed in December 2021. Therefore, results of high novelty and clinical relevance will be presented to the scientific community for the very first time.