Summary: New study reveals patterns of brain activity that could lead to a teenager’s gambling addiction. In a study of adolescents between the ages of 10 and 15, researchers found that those who developed gaming addiction symptoms over the course of four years had less activity in brain regions associated with decision-making and praise control.
This lessening reaction to non-gaming benefits suggests that some adolescent types are more prone to dangerous gaming habits. The findings provide parents and physicians with information on establishing good gambling habits and identifying at-risk individuals first.
Important Information:
- Mind Marker Identified: Teens with lowered reward-processing mental activity are more likely to develop games addiction symptoms.
- Vertical Insights: Head imaging four years earlier predicted gambling addiction tendencies in adolescents.
- Healthy Gaming Balance: The investigation emphasizes striking a balance between unhealthy game practices and increased game.
Origin: University of Rochester
Playing video games is a rite of passage for some children, but for some, it could also be the first step to a gambling addiction.
” A number one concern for parents of children and adolescents is how much screen time and how much gaming is much gaming and how to figure out where to draw the line”, said , John Foxe, PhD, director of the , Del Monte Institute for Neuroscience at the University of Rochester , and co-author of a study out today in the , Journal of Behavioral Addictions , that discovered a key indicator in the brains of teenagers who develop gambling addiction signs.
” These files begin to give us some responses”.
Researchers examined data from 6, 143 identified video game people aged 10 to 14 over a four-year period. As participants in the first year completed the task of pressing a button quickly enough to get a$ 5 reward, researchers used an ultrasound to perform brain scans in the first year. Over the following three years, researchers asked the same members to reply Video Game Addiction Questionnaires.
In contrast to the first head scan taken four years earlier, the participants who had more of a gambling addiction over period showed lower brain activity in the area involved in decision-making and reward processing.
Previous study in adults has revealed a similar finding: this sharpened response to prize anticipation is linked to higher symptoms of gaming addiction. It also suggests that a decreased sensitivity to rewards, especially non-gaming rewards, does play a role in dangerous gaming.
” Gaming itself is not unhealthy, but there is a line, and our study clearly demonstrates that some people are more susceptible to symptoms of gaming addiction than others,” said first author of the study, Daniel Lopez, PhD ( ’23 ), a postdoctoral fellow at the Oregon Health & Science University’s Developmental Brain Imaging Lab.
” I think for parents, that’s really important because you could limit children entirely from gaming, but that’s going to get really, really hard and vital to their development as well as their cultural development.
However, we need to know the right balance between good gaming and bad gaming, so this research will point us in the direction of the neural markers we can use to determine who might exhibit bad gaming behaviors.
Teen Brain Health: A Longitudinal Study Transforms Its Patients
The Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development ( ABCD ) Study provided the data for this study. The ABCD Study, which was launched in 2015, follows an audience of 11, 878 children from adolescence through adulthood to establish the foundational standards of brain development.
The open-source data model has allowed researchers nationwide to shed light on various facets of social, emotional, cognitive, and physical development during adolescence. The University of Rochester joined the study in 2017 and is one of 21 sites that has gathered the data from nearly 340 participants.  ,
Ed Freedman, PhD, professor of Neuroscience at the University and co-principal investigator of the University study site, led this recent research on gaming.
The extensive data set that includes this understudied developmental window is making recommendations for everything, including screen and sleep. And now, according to Freedman, we have specific brain regions that are linked to gaming addiction in teenagers.
This enables us to ask additional inquiries to determine whether there are methods to identify at-risk children and whether there are any suggestions or behaviors that could reduce risk.
” We’re very proud that this Rochester cohort is a part of this national and international dialogue around adolescent health,” said Foxe, who is also a co-PI on the , ABCD Study in Rochester.
We have already seen how policy across the world is being significantly affected by this data, including the data collected here from our community.
Additional authors on the , Journal of Behavioral Addictions , study include , Edwin van Wijngaarden, PhD, of the , University of Rochester Medical Center, and Wesley Thompson, PhD, of the Laureate Institute for Brain Research.
The National Institutes of Health and the University of Rochester’s Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities Research Center provided funding for the study.
About this news about neurodevelopment and gaming addiction
Author: Kelsie Smith Hayduk
Source: University of Rochester
Contact: Kelsie Smith Hayduk – University of Rochester
Image: The image is credited to Neuroscience News
Original Research: Open access.
The Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development Study’s” The longitudinal association between reward processing and symptoms of video game addiction” by John Foxe and colleagues. Journal of Behavioral Addictions
Abstract
The Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development Study examined the longitudinal relationship between reward processing and symptoms of video game addiction.
Background and aims
Video games are a common form of entertainment in adolescents, which may result in gaming habits characterized by impairment to reward-related decision-making. The purpose of the current study was to examine the link between reward processing and adolescent gaming addiction symptoms.
Methods
Data from three consecutive follow-up years (years 2, 3 and 4 ) of the , Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development ( ABCD ) Study were analyzed ( n , = 6, 143, total observations , = 12, 745, mean age at year-2 = 12 years ). Participants each completed the Video Game Addiction Questionnaire (VGAQ ) at each visit.
At the year-two visit, the participant performed a functional magnetic resonance imaging ( fMRI ) scan while performing a discrete stage of reward processing using the Monetary Incentive Delay task. The longitudinal relationship between reward processing in areas of interest at year-2 and VGAQ scores over time was examined using Bayesian hierarchical linear models.
Results
Lower activation in the bilateral caudate during the anticipation of a large reward ( β , = −0.87, 95 % CI: −1.68, −0.07 ) was associated with greater VGAQ scores over time. According to the VGAQ, this implies that for every one-unit increase in brain activity in the caudate, the symptoms of gaming addiction were also associated with a 0.87-point decrease. Reward feedback and VGAQ scores were not related in any way to one another.
Discussion and Conclusions
The findings point to an association between abnormal reward processing in the caudate nucleus and adolescent symptoms of gaming addiction. These findings help us understand the brain processes that drive gaming addiction more fully, which could help us develop better prevention and treatment options.
