A selective involvement of putamen functional connectivity in youth with internet gaming disorder (2014)

• ¹Melbourne Neuropsychiatry Centre, Department of Psychiatry, University of Melbourne and Melbourne Health, Parkville, Victoria, Australia; Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health, Parkville, Victoria, Australia; Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Department of Psychiatry, Seoul National University Hospital, Seoul, Republic of Korea.
• ²Melbourne Neuropsychiatry Centre, Department of Psychiatry, University of Melbourne and Melbourne Health, Parkville, Victoria, Australia.
• ³Department of Child Development and Family Studies, College of Human Ecology, Seoul National University, Seoul, Republic of Korea.
• ⁴Seoul-Top Psychiatric Clinic, Gyeonggi, Republic of Korea.
• ⁵Interdisciplinary Program (Early Childhood Education Major), College of Education, Seoul National University, Seoul, Republic of Korea.
• ⁶Department of Education (Educational Counseling Major), College of Education, Seoul National University, Seoul, Republic of Korea.
• ⁷Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Department of Psychiatry, Seoul National University Hospital, Seoul, Republic of Korea.
• ⁸Department of Child Development and Family Studies, College of Human Ecology, Seoul National University, Seoul, Republic of Korea. Electronic address: [email protected].

Brain cortico-striatal circuits have consistently been implicated in the pathology of addiction related disorders. We applied a reliable seed-based analysis of the resting-state brain activity to comprehensively delineate the subdivisions of striatal functional connectivity implicated in internet gaming disorder. Among twelve right-handed male adolescents with internet gaming disorder and 11 right-handed and gender-matched healthy controls, we examined group differences in the functional connectivity of dorsal and ventral subdivisions of the caudate nucleus and putamen, as well as the association of these connectivity indices with behavioral measures of internet use. Adolescents with internet gaming disorder showed significantly reduced dorsal putamen functional connectivity with the posterior insula-parietal operculum. More time spent playing online games predicted significantly greater functional connectivity between the dorsal putamen and bilateral primary somatosensory cortices in adolescents with internet gaming disorder, and significantly lower functional connectivity between the dorsal putamen and bilateral sensorimotor cortices in healthy controls. The dorsal putamen functional connectivity was significantly and specifically different in adolescents with internet gaming disorder. The findings suggest a possible biomarker of internet gaming disorder.